


After, Therefore Because

by ilikegoo



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Divorce, F/M, Marriage, Origins, Parenthood, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 31,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24571027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilikegoo/pseuds/ilikegoo
Summary: To understand how to fix it, you need to know how it broke.An AU where Will and Mac met way earlier in the 90's whilst he was her college proffessor and what happened next.Chapters 19&20 added
Relationships: Brian Brenner/MacKenzie McHale, Will McAvoy/MacKenzie McHale
Comments: 50
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1 - 2010

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for a little while, it started as a "what if you wrote it this way" whilst working on Getting to Memphis. I said I wasn't going to post it until I'd made more progress on my already on-going stories but, never mind. 
> 
> Chapters will alternate between past and present and I've decided to visit the well trodden path of Will being Mac's teacher. I hope you enjoy.

** April 2010 **

Will sat in the garden smoking. Tomorrow was his first night back at work since the Northwestern disaster. He’d spent 10 days in St Lucia over spring break with the kids and then another week or so holed up in the townhouse he’d bought with Mackenzie in the West Village.

‘Mackenzie’ he laughs. The whole reason he was in this mess in the first place. The vision of his ex-wife in the crowd prompting to launch into a profanity laced tirade at an undergrad. ‘It’s not but, it can be’. He can’t help but snort. He first met Mackenzie around 15 years ago in 1995, he was teaching classes at Georgetown and had been for a few years having suddenly found himself a free agent following Bush’s loss to Clinton in the ’92 presidential election.

**_Flashback:_ **

_“Professor McAvoy!” A voice called out from behind him and he saw one of his graduate students Macauley something he thinks, probably his favourite student. She was clever and passionate, he also thought she was pretty, but it was redundant she was his student and that was the number one rule of teaching. You don’t date the students, especially not pretty grad students who are considerably younger than you._

_“Office hours are tomorrow at three.” He calls back although she appears undeterred._

_“I just wanted to ask what you thought about the criticism of the Points of Light Foundation.”_

_Will stopped and turned “What?”_

_“The Points of Light foundation.” She says again “The LA Times ran an article last year criticising it’s use of federal funds. I know you were instrumental in crafting the policy…”_

_“I was a junior speech writer. I didn’t get much say in policy.” Will starts walking again._

_“Professor…” She starts again. “You were hardly a ‘junior’ speech writer, I’ve done my research…”_

_“What?” He asks interrupting her “Why do you care about this? Domestic do-good charity initiatives aren’t exactly on the syllabus for a class on US-China relations.”_

_“Because my father tells me not to ask your opinion on China, he thinks every opinion you’ve ever had about China is wrong…”_

_“Yet you’re taking my class?” Will cuts in._

_“I wanted to see if he was right or not.” Mac fires back without missing a beat “And besides, I’m writing a piece about Thousand Points of Light Initiative for the Hoya and I know you were responsible for that part of the speech in the ‘91 state of the union so I thought, you might have some opinions…”_

_“Like your father has opinions on my opinions on China.” Will shoots back._

_“He also thinks you’re Republican Nitwit.” She smiles._

_“Ahhh, Democrat?”_

_“No, not really. You’ve met him you know?”_

_“Have I?”_

_“Ted McHale.”_

_“Oh.” He was surprised, he wasn’t expecting that answer. Ted McHale was Britain’s Ambassador to the United Nations, a Conservative with liberal leanings who was Margret Thatcher’s choice for US Ambassador and then Major sent him to the UN in 92._

_“Anyway. Points of Light.” She prompts._

_He can’t help but grin at her determination. “Office hours are tomorrow at 3pm.”_

_She huffs and walks away. It would be hilarious if he didn’t find it so cute. ‘Stop it.’ He told himself, thinking that way about 20-something grad students he was supposed to be teaching. Especially not 20 something grad students whose fathers sit on the United Nations Security Council._

_“Wait!” He calls after her. “What do you think? Is your father right about my views on China?” He calls after her as she walks down the hall._

_“I’ll guess you’ll find out during office hours!” She calls back without ever turning around and he laughs out loud._

**_End Flashback_ **

“Dad?” Will looks up and again sees a vision of his ex-wife, this time in the form of his 12-year-old daughter Emily. “You shouldn’t smoke.”

“I know.” He makes a point of stubbing out the cigarette. He tries his best to smoke in-front of the kids and even quit once but, after Mac left, after he’d found out she’d taken the assignment in Iraq he found the habit returning, seemingly the only way to calm his nerves. Not that he’d ever admit that he was worried about her over there.

“Then why do you do it?” Emily asked him.

“I don’t know.” He answers, it’s easier than the truth.

“Can I go to Tiffany’s after school tomorrow? She’s having a study thing.”

“A study thing?” He asks

“Yeah, Chelsea’s going too.”

“What’s a study thing?” He asks again

“Like where you do homework and stuff.”

“What about your brother?” Will asks.

“I think he’s got like T-Ball and then scouts.”

“He’s too old for T-Ball.” Will says. His daughters lack of interest in sports rivals her mothers.

“So not the point Dad.” Emily whines “Can I go or not?”

“Be home when he finished scouts.” Will points out.

“Deal.”

… … … … … …

Will’s day had gone from bad to worse, first he’d come back in and found that Don was fleeing the sinking ship of Newsnight and taking his entire staff with him. Then he’d gone upstairs to speak with Charlie and found that Charlie had hired his ex-wife Mackenzie to come and run his show. He’d stormed straight over to his agent after discovering that he doesn’t have contractual approval over his EP, he’d had to give up a million dollars a year and agree to a non-compete clause just to be able to fire the woman who was now stood in front of him.

She was as beautiful as ever, if not a little thinner with shorter hair. She shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other and bit her bottom lip as she looked at him “Hi Will.”

He hadn’t said a word to her since he’d mumbled “Get Out” from behind his hands as she’d confessed to cheating on him. “Let’s go to my office.” He forces out, walking to his office knowing she’d follow him.

He lights a cigarette steadfastly ignoring the withering look she gave him as he does so, she gave up the right to judge his habits when she chose to ignore the part of their vows where she promised fidelity.

“I didn’t know you were back.” He eventually says breaking the awkward silence.

“Did Emily or Dylan not tell you? I spoke to them weeks ago” Mac looked at him awkwardly.

“No. We don’t talk about you.” He cuts her off.

“I’m not sure that’s healthy” She mumbles.

“Mackenzie…”

“I mean they should be able to talk to you about me…” Mac starts to ramble “I’m only their mother…”

“Who cheated on their father with her waste of space college boyfriend and then left for a warzone for three years.”

“That’s fair.” She agrees.

“Talking to them twice a week on Skype isn’t parenting Mackenzie.” He spits out angrily.

“I know. I’m back now.” Mac tries to hide the hurt in her voice.

“For now.” He says smugly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asks, “I have a three-year contract.”

“It’s not a three-year contract.” Will leans forward in his chair. “It’s a 156-week contract that gives me the opportunity to fire you 155 times”

“What?”

“I gave back some money off my salary.” The statement comes with a nonchalant shoulder shrug.

“How much?” She needed to know, what figure did he put on hating her.

“One million dollars a year.” He lights another cigarette.

“You paid a million dollars just to fire me whenever you want?”

“Three million dollars actually.” He corrects her math “And not whenever I want, at the end of each week.”

“How the hell much money do you get paid?” She asks incredulously

“What’s a matter hon, not happy with your alimony check?”

“It’s not about that Will.”

Any snarky response Will had planned is ruined by Jack or whatever his name coming in with the story about an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

… … … … … …

“How was Mom?” Emily asked when he walked in the door.

“So, you did know?” He sits next to her at the dining table.

“Yeah.” Emily shrugs

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He asks softly

“Would you have wanted to know?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He takes in his daughter’s defiant stare and she shrugs again. He shakes his head “Go on. It’s gone 10, you’ve got school tomorrow.”

Once he hears Emily climb the stairs he pours himself a scotch and with a shaking hand, pulls his blackberry out and dials her number.

“Will?” The voice on the end of the phone seems surprised.

“Hi.”

“Is everything ok? Emily and Dylan are they…” Mac sounds panicked. Will hasn’t called her in years.

“Both fine.” He says quickly. “I um, just wanted to say good show tonight.”

“Thank you.” Mac sounds surprised.

“And if you want, it’s now a 158 week contract.”

Mac laughs in response, a breathy chuckle that Will was once so familiar with, the memory of it causes his chest to constrict in pain. “Thank you.” She tells him in acceptance of his offer.

“Listen Mackenzie, earlier in my office I was…” He trails off taking a moment to think “I was harsh.”

“But right.” She says sadly.

“The kids, they miss you.” Will takes a sip of his scotch.

“I miss them. I’ve missed them every day.”

“We uh, now that your back…” He looks at his ceiling “If you want to have your lawyer take another look at the custody arrangement…” The sentence trails off.

“The custody agreement?” Her voice is high pitched. “We have joint custody Will.”

“I have physical custody though.” His tone turns defensive “Since you were leaving.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” She snaps.

“I don’t want to fight Mac.” Will adds quickly. “I just, if you want to see the kids more.”

“Of course I want to see my children. Why do you think I took this job?” She asks him angrily “I certainly wasn’t because I thought you’d welcome me back with open arms.”

“I’m sorry.” Will whispers.

Mac sighs “It’s been a long day. We’ll talk about this another time.”

“Goodnight Mackenzie.”

“Goodnight Will.”

He hangs up the phone and sips his drink thinking back to when she came to office hours all those years ago.


	2. Chapter 2 - October 1995

** October 1995 **

“Professor.” Mackenzie says confidently as she enters his office at exactly 3pm. Will can’t help but laugh.

“How long were you waiting outside so you could make that entrance Ms McHale?” He’s still chuckling as walks towards his desk.

“Five minutes. My father always said, four minutes early is one minute late. It’s something they drilled into him at Dartmouth.” Mac takes her seat.

“I never would have imaged Dartmouth University was so stringent on its time keeping.” He pretends to shuffle some papers on his desk for effect.

“Not that Dartmouth. Britannia Royal Naval College. My father was a sailor before he was a diplomat.” She says it like it should have been obvious. 

“Right.” He says. “So you have questions about Points of Light?” Will needed to get this meeting back on track.

Mackenzie asks her questions and soon the conversation turns in to an argument.

“The LA Times claim they used 22 million dollars of their federal funding on swanky advertising and first class flights.” Her tone is accusatory.

“Most of the federal funding is for administration expenses…” Will tries to argue

“How is a first class flight an administration expense?” Mac fires back at him.

“Travel is a key…”He tries again

“Something wrong with economy?” She cocks an eyebrow at him.

“And how did you fly from London to DC?” He challenges.

“Business Class, using private funds and not the funds of the UK government designed for charitable use.” Will can’t help but think she has a point but he’ll be damned if he isn’t enjoying arguing with her, it’d been a few years since he’d had a passionate argument with anyone but he eyes his clock.

“Listen Mackenzie. I agree with you, first class travel expenses shouldn’t be funded by charity but thankfully the majority of the funding is from grass roots sources and used to benefit the community. Federal funding is used for the ugly side of charity in the US” Mac looks like she’s about to interrupt so he holds up a hand to stop her “I can only give 10 minutes per student and our 10 minutes is up.”

“I’ve got more to say on this Professor.” She threatens.

“That, I don’t doubt.” Will smirks. “My last class today finishes at 5pm.” He tells her, “There’s a decent Mom and Pop steak place near the White House I used to go to when I was staffer there.”

“I’m a vegetarian” She huffs.

He can’t help but smile again “They have an excellent vegetarian option as well.”

“Fine.”

“We can finish our conversation then.” He stands and leads her to the door. “Meet back here around 5:30?”

She nods “Is there a dress code?”

He takes in her outfit, letting his eyes linger longer than he should on her long legs. “How you are is fine.” He holds the door open for her and she walks out.

“What the fuck are you doing McAvoy?” He asks himself as the door closes. He absolutely should not be taking her to dinner.

… … … … … …

“Professor, I was worried you were going stand me up.” She’s leant against the wall outside of his locked office, one foot up against the wall.

“Sorry.” He grumbles as he unlocks the door. “An idiot undergrad was trying to tell me that he thought the invasion of Panama was a proportional response.”

“You disagree?”

“Anyone with a brain cell disagrees. 23 dead another 394 wounded on our side with over a thousand wounded and somewhere between 234 to 314 dead on the Panamanian side? For the life of one man. It was a major overreaction by a first time commander. You seem surprised.” He tells her.

“You were part of the administration that came up with the plan.” She shrugs and follows him to the office

“I served at the pleasure of the President.” Will responds as he starts throwing his papers in his briefcase. “Doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with everything he did.” Mac had to admit that surprised her.

Will leads her out of his office and towards his car, making idle chat about their day as he drives them to the restaurant.

“You used to come here when you worked at the White House?” Mac asks as they’re led to a table.

“Mmm.” Will agrees “It’s close.” She laughs, close was an understatement, it was hidden a block away from the White House.

“Is there not a staff restaurant?” She asks him.

“Of course there is but if you haven’t left the office in close to 24 hours it’s nice to get out.” He hands Mac a menu

“I thought you were about to tell me that the food was awful.” She smiles as a way to say thank you.

“You really think the food at the White House is bad?”

“Not in my experience.” She tells him casually.

“You’ve eaten at the White House?” Will seems surprised.

“The odd state dinner or two.” She smiles at the waitress who comes to take their drinks order. “I would image we’ve been at the same dinner.”

“Small world.” He agrees and orders a beer whilst Mackenzie orders a glass of red wine.

“So what are you studying?” He asks awkwardly.

“I’m doing a Masters in Journalism.” Mac seems surprised by the question.

“How did you end up in my class then?”

“I’m auditing a few politics classes.” She sips her wine “How am I going to inform the electorate if I’m not informed myself?”

“Informing the electorate?”

“A well informed electorate is important for any democracy.”

“I can’t help but feel the electorate is more interested in what’s going to happen with Ross and Rachel than what the President is up to in Bosnia or that he’s making some noise about…”

“What about the Republican’s trying to force his hand on the proposed Medicare cuts?”

“Cuts need to be made now, not promising a balanced budget 10 years from now.” He shoots back. “Let’s not forget he’s making some noise about repealing Glass-Steagall.”

“Exactly! All of this is far more important than what’s happening on the X-Files.”

“Hey!” Will laughs “If you don’t want to believe…”

“I want to believe that as a nation we’re better than this.” She cuts across him

“Aren’t you British?” With her accent she couldn’t be anything but.

“American.” She says with a frustrated voice.

“Sorry, the accent throws me off.” He holds his hands up in self-defence.

“I was born in New York whilst my father worked at the UN.”

“Children of diplomats don’t have automatic birth right to US citizenship though?” Will questions.

“But Children of American’s do.” She says casually.

“Your mother?” Will asks and Mac nods, any further conversation is briefly stopped by the arrival of their food.

“Professor?” Mac asks.

“Will, please. We’re not on campus now.” Plus, he’s not sure he likes being reminded he’s technically her teacher.

“Ok. Will.” She smiles at him “Points of Light.”

“What do you want to know?”

“The use of federal funding…”

“Is not just a problem limited to Points of Light.” He puts down his knife and fork. “Charities are businesses at the end of the day and you’re not going to attract the right person to work for them if it doesn’t come with certain perks…”

“You need perks to help people?” She throws the challenge in.

““It certainly helps people want to help people.”

“That’s incredibly cynical” Mac raises an eyebrow at him.

“Spend a little more time in Washington and you’ll learn that the actions of 99% of people are always going to be self-serving.”

“That’s DC.”

“I was a prosecutor in New York. Very few of the people I ever put in jail were doing things for anything other than their own self gain.”

“How does a prosecutor end up in the White House arguing about China?”

“I was head hunted by the RNC, asked to help the campaign. I needed a break and then the President asked me to stay on.”

“Never felt like going back to the court room?”

“I maintain my bar association membership in New York and I advise on the Criminal Law Review at the university, teach the odd workshop, but who knows what the future holds.”

“Well I’ll keep you in mind if I ever get in trouble in New York State.”

“If?” He smirks and she laughs. He thinks it’s the best sound he ever heard.

The rest of dinner progresses smoothly and she only puts up a minor fight when he insists on paying. He walks her outside, hand on her back and shoves his hands in his pockets once they’re stood on the street. “I’ll um, drive you back to campus or I can take you home, your home obviously?”

“Oh!” She seems surprised “Um, it’s Ok. I promised Brian I’d come by after dinner.”

“Brian?” He feels his stomach drop.

“Um. Brian Brenner, my boyfriend. You might have heard of him he’s the Editor of the Hoya. He’s already managed to secure a job at Newsweek when he leaves here.” She’s rambling and she doesn’t know why she feels bad. “I was going to get the Metro.”

Will meanwhile feels like a fool. She’s 23 and he’s 35, sure she’s smart, articulate and beautiful of course she’d have been snapped up by another (more age appropriate) guy. She’s also his student and nothing about tonight had been appropriate, it’s probably a good thing she’s taken since it’s stopped him making an even bigger mistake.

“At least let me give you some money for a cab.” He pulls out his wallet again “You shouldn’t ride the Metro alone at night.”

She takes the offered $20 and smiles. “Thanks for dinner Will.”

“No problem. See you in class?” He flags a cab down for her.

“Sure” She smiles as she gets in the cab and then she’s gone.


	3. April 2010

** April 2010 **

“Morning.” Will grumbles as he walks into the kitchen and grabs the cereals.

“Hey.” Emily greets not looking up for the homework she was finishing at the breakfast bar.

“I thought you did your homework at your study thing.” He asks his he pours his coffee.

“We were working on a project.” Will smiles as he watches her subtract on her fingers, definitely something she inherited from her mother.

“Ok.” He looks around and realises he’s one child short. “Where’s your brother?” Emily shrugs and he yells “DYLAN!”

His youngest child comes running in to kitchen barely ready for school, shirt untucked, odd socks and hair uncombed. Will starts pouring his cereal. “Hey buddy, where’s your tie?”

Dylan shrugs “I think I left it at school.” He starts wolfing down his cereal “I hit a double yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Will sits down and places a glass of OJ in front of Dylan who starts slurping it barely swallowing before shoving more cereal in his mouth. Baseball was something he shared with his son and it momentarily distracted him from trying to get them out of the house on time.

“Uh huh.” He mumbles in between mouthfuls of cereal “We have a game on Friday, are you coming?”

“What time?” Will asks as he pours his own cereal.

“4pm.” Dylan finishes his cereal and jumps down from the breakfast bar and runs to the hallway.

“Hey!” Will calls, “Bowl!” He points at his bowl and glass and Dylan comes running in the room scoops up his bowl and glass and puts them in the dishwasher and runs out the room again. “Where’s the game?” Will yells.

“Uhhhhh Central Park!” Will hears him rooting round for his shoes. “The one by the butterflies!” Dylan calls back.

“He’s an idiot.” Emily gets off the bench, tidies her mess and goes to the corner of the room where she finds her brothers school shoes.

“Daaaaaaaaaaad.” Dylan comes back in “I can’t find my shoes.”

“Here.” Emily throws them at him. “Doofus.”

“Don’t call me a doofus!” He yells.

“Hey!” Will calls anticipating the argument and cutting it off. “School. Go.” He reaches into a draw and pulls out a spare school tie and walks over to his son tying it for him.

“Dad?” Dylan stops at the door “Do you think Mom will come to my game?”

“Maybe” Will was caught off guard by the question and he stands frozen in the door whilst the kids leave for the bus.

He starts wiping down the mess and thinks about the kids. Emily is Mackenzie’s double in looks and brains, although for some reason she has the serene sense of unflappable calm that he’s can’t attribute to either of them. Dylan on the other hand is the perfect mix of both of them in terms of looks, the air of chaos that surrounds him is all Mac, he’s not the most academically gifted kid on the planet but he smart kid. Will realises that he’s been wiping his bench clean for about 10 minutes and decides to get ready for work. To get ready to face Mac again.

… … … … … …

“I’m sorry about last night.” Will says in lieu of a greeting as he walks into Mac’s office.

“It’s ok.” She says, they both know it isn’t.

“It’s a conversation we need to have right?” Mac smiles weakly at him.

“Yeah but not right now.” Will shrugs “Dylan has a baseball game on Friday.”

“Ok.” Mac’s not sure where he’s going with the conversation.

“He asked if you were going to come.”

“Oh.” Mac was surprised. “What time?”

“4pm.” Will tells her “At the uh softball field by the butterfly gardens.”

“We have a rundown at 4pm.” She points out, not sure what else to say.

“I was planning on skipping it as long as you promise not to tell the EP.” He winks at her.

“Well as long as you don’t tell the guy who can fire me at the end of each week that I was going to skip the final rundown” She smiles nervously at him.

“Great. Friday.” He goes to stand up.

“Billy?” She stops him. “Do you think maybe I could have the kids this weekend?” She looks at him with the big brown eyes he was always powerless to resist.

“Ummm” He knew this was something that was going to happen eventually, the kids seemed eager to see Mac “Yeah Ok.” He walked out the room. Happy they’d managed a conversation about the kids without arguing. ‘1 for 3’ he thinks and walks out the room.

… … … … … …

Friday came around, it had been a slow week largely dealing with the aftermath of the spill. It had also been a tense week for Will and Mac, both were a little gun shy around each other. Meetings in work had been awkward with neither Will or Mac sure what to say to each other and the conversation was forced. Will had left for Dylan’s baseball game a little earlier than Mac and when he saw her in the small crowd he tensed up a little bit.

“Hi Daddy.” His daughter bumped his hip with hers.

“Uh oh” He smiled wrapping an arm around her shoulder “What do you want?” He was only ever Daddy these days when she wanted something.

“Chelsea is having a party next week...” She starts.

“Ok…” He says cautiously.

“It’s a boy girl party but…” Emily starts however, Will cuts her off.

“No way.”

“Her parents are going to be there.” Emily starts. “Please Daddy.” She flashes the big brown puppy dog eyes and he feels his resolution waver.

“Her parents are going to be there?” He confirms.

“Absolutely.” She says enthusiastically.

“Home by curfew.”

“Thanks.” She looks over to her mother “Have, you said hi to Mom?”

“Not yet.” He looks straight forward instead of at his daughter.

“You should.” Emily tries.

“I see her at work.” He tries not to let any emotion show.

“Dad she doesn’t know anyone else here!” She pleads with him again and he doesn’t say anything. She sighs resigned to the fact he won’t be speaking to Mac. “Can I have some popcorn and a soda?”

“Sure.” He hands her some cash and she goes off and grabs her popcorn, her soda and her mother before coming back.

“Hey Mac.” Will tries to force himself to make it less awkward for the sake of Emily.

“Hi.” Mac smiles at him, luckily Dylan waving at them from his position on first base helps break up the awkward family moment. Emily spots some of her friends and runs off leaving Will and Mac together.

“This is awkward.” Mac acknowledges.

“Yeah.” Will agrees.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Mac points out.

“It’s been three years Mac, it’s going to be weird for a while.” He looks at her. “Do you want a soda?”

“Diet. Please.” Will goes off and gets Mac her soda, she thanks him when she gets back.

“So I had an idea for the show.” She says focusing on the game rather Will’s face. “I think you’ve been pandering.”

“Pandering?” He briefly looks at her.

“Yeah, you haven’t been doing the news…” She starts

“What do you think I’ve been doing all week?”

“The news.” Mac admits.

“Jesus Christ Mac.” He rubs his face.

“Next week I want to move us away from the spill. We’ll still cover it but there’s other things that have been happening that people need to know about.”

“Arizona is about to pass the strictest set of anti-immigration laws that have ever been passed.” Mac starts.

“How is that going to be bigger than the multiple states that are going to be effected by the spill.” Will asks

“The spill is going to take months to clean up.” Mac says exasperated “We can’t cover it all show, every show until every single grain of sand is oil free. Legislation like this effects millions.”

“It’s what the viewers want to see Mackenzie.”

“But it’s not something they need to know.” She says frustrated.

“Oh, this again?” He finally looks at her and sees her staring back at him with fire in her eyes.

“This again? I remember a time you agreed with me.” She challenges.

“I educate the American public Mac…”

“On the latest series of 24 or what’s happening on YouTube!” She throws back. “This is an issue that effects Americans. Hispanic in Arizona? Better carry your documents.”

“Illegal immigration is…”

“A separate issue. Non-citizens already have to carry around their Alien registration documents in the states, it doesn’t need to be a state crime as well as federal. The bill actively encourages law enforcement to check documents, well not encourage, makes it a requirement.”

“Well if people are going to choose to hop the border…”

“Sometimes I forget how Republican you are.” She shoots back at him.

“I just think people should follow the law.” He looks up at the sky. “Fine.”

“What?” She’s confused.

“It’s going to upset a lot of people and we’ve got hell of a bump in the ratings with our spill coverage.” Will still refuses to look at her. “Don’t you think we should focus on keeping those viewers?”

“Those viewers we got by doing the news?” She says smugly and Will can’t help but concede that point to her. “We cover it fairly. From both sides. I know you still have friends in the RNC..”

“What are you asking Mac?”

“Jan Brewer.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s her bill. Let her defend it.” She says firmly.

“Ok.” Will agrees. “Hey, listen.”

“Go on…” She says thinking he’s about to argue over content with her some more.

“I never told the kids why we split up.” She wasn’t expecting him to say that.

“Oh!” It surprised her.

“I uh, you’re a good Mom and I didn’t want them to think otherwise.” That surprises her more given the insults that he’d flung at her earlier in the week. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Thank you.” Mac can’t think of anything else to say and they watch the rest of the game in a slightly less uncomfortable silence.


	4. November 1995

** November 1995 **

He’d started his class approximately 5 minutes earlier when Mackenzie hurried in and looked around seeing the only available seat at the front of the small lecture theatre. He’d been annoyed she hadn’t shown up, she never missed class ever. She also hadn’t missed office hours since their discussion on Points of Light.

“You’re late Ms McHale.” Will grumps angrily, she was 9 minutes late by her own standards of being 5 minutes early to everything.

“Sorry.” She mumbles and slides into the seat and starts unpacking her bags. It’s then he notices her eyes are red and puffy and her make-up is streaky. The annoyance he felt at her being late is suddenly replaced by concern, she’d obviously been crying. He finishes the class his concern growing when she fails to argue any of his positions on US relations in Taiwan, she was normally pretty vocal in class and arguing with her was honestly his favourite things about this small graduate level seminar.

“McHale!” He calls as the class start to walk out.

“Professor?” She turns and walks back to him “Is this about me being late, I’m sorry. It’…”

“Are you ok?” He asks quickly

“Oh!” She seems caught off guard by his concern. “It’s nothing. Just personal drama, I won’t let it get in the way again.”

“Hey, it’s ok. Everyone’s allowed to have a personal thing going on.” He shuffles uncomfortably and looks out a window avoiding her gaze. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you care?” She asks surprised.

“I mean, you’re my student.” He says it for himself rather than her. “If it effects your study then sure, yeah, I..care.”

“It’s just, boy drama.” She huffs

“Let’s grab a coffee.” He says quickly “I’ve got time before my next class if you do.”

“I, um, yeah.” Mac lets herself be led from the room and to the campus coffee shop.

“Tell me about your boy drama.” Will encourages as they sit at the table.

“You honestly want me to tell you about my boy drama?” She laughs

“I have younger sisters. I’m used to it.” He shrugs.

“It’s less boy drama and more a disagreement about the path I’m going to take when I graduate in a few months.”

“Ah, post-college career guidance.” He nods “A much more appropriate student/faculty conversation.”

“Brian…”

“The cause of the boy drama?” He grins

“Thinks there’s a nobility in print journalism.” She points out.

“You disagree?” Will sips his coffee. “Miss I want to educate the people?”

“Inform the people and it’s not a lack of nobility more a growing irrelevance of print journalism.” Mac argues.

“You think print is irrelevant?” That surprises Will since he knows she writes for the student paper.

“You worked with the White House Press Corps, you tell me.”

“I mean the newspapers still have some of the best seats in the house in the press room.” Will starts “But yeah, TV stations are probably the more popular choice for the average consumer, Fitzwater let the TV stations ask more questions.”

“Exactly.” Mac agrees passionately. “So, I got an evening and weekend interning job at ACN in their DC office.”

“Congratulations.”

“Brian thinks it’s a betrayal of everything he, we, stand for. That I’m pandering to the lowest common denominator by going for TV news instead of sticking with print.” She picks at the table. Will pretends not to notice her he/we slip. “I quit the Hoya.” She says.

“Does that mean you’re going to stop showing up at my office to argue with me about Bush era policies?” He says it lightly but actually he’s pretty sad, she shows up at the start of office hours every week to ask about his former boss.

“No.” She says in a determined manner and he tries to tamp down the smile. “I’ve started with Georgetown University TV, I pitched an idea about the supreme court and I have 15 minutes at quarter past 11 on a Friday night to look at the work the supreme court has done that week.”

“Ms. McHale. I didn’t know you knew about the law.” He’s surprised.

“I don’t but I need a faculty advisor who might know something” She looks at him hopefully.

“I feel I’ve been lured here on false pretences.” He grins.

“I like how you think I was going to ask you.” She sips her coffee.

“Go on.” He waves a hand at her.

“Professor, I need a faculty advisor for my show. I was wondering if you could recommend anyone?” She looks at him with a smile that reaches all the way up to her eyes and he laughs.

“Professor Katz?” Will suggests

“Mmm turned me down.” Mac says sadly

“Professor Wallis?” Will throws out again.

“Turned me down as have Professors Stevens and Michaels.” She pretends to have a moment “Hey, I heard you used to be a lawyer, do you think maybe you could help?”

“As your fifth choice? I’d have to think about it.” He smirks.

“Actually you’re more like my 7th choice.” She smiles that big smile again.

“Oh well that changes everything.” Will laughs “Sure Miss McHale. I’ll help.” She smiles at him again.

… … … … … …

“You look tired.” Will told her, they were having a planning meeting about her show.

“I picked a rough time to start an internship at a major news organisation.” She takes a sip from her large coffee. The federal government had shut down a few days earlier, just as Mac was starting the second week of her internship at ACN.

“Yeah but I heard a deal is about to be struck to end the shut down.” Will said

“Really?” Mac was surprised.

“Yeah, a load of unpaid furloughed employees right before Christmas? Nobody wants to see it, it already looks like an attempt to reclaim hard conservatism after the moderate Bush era.” Will shrugged.

“And who told you that Professor McAvoy?

“Trying to hit me up for sources?” Will smirks.

“Maybe.” Looks at him with big pleading brown eyes and he caves, grabbing a scrap of paper and scribbling a phone number.

“Call this guy, tell him you’re a friend of mine.”

She beams at him “Thank you.”

A few days later as she leaves class, she stops in front of Will and stares at him “Can I help you?”

“Bob Dole?” She shakes her head “Your friend is the Senate Majority Leader.” Will shrugs and laughs. “Thank you. My boss was really impressed.” She fires that big smile that reaches all the way up to her eyes at him.

It totally makes the (admittedly light hearted) call from Bob complaining about rambunctious students bothering him about matters of state worth it.


	5. April 2010

“Hey Mac! Can I talk to you a second?” He calls her into his office.

“We’ve got a run-down meeting.” She points.

“Yeah” He shut the door behind her indicating that he doesn’t care.

“Listen, everyone out there knows we were married…” He starts.

“You don’t say.” She says sarcastically.

“I don’t want everyone to know why we’re no longer married.” He sparks up a cigarette again.

“You think I’m going to tell them?” Was he seriously expecting her to hold a staff meeting where she publicly admits to sleeping with her ex-boyfriend whilst married to him with kids at home?

“I find it hard to predict what you will and won’t do.” He points out.

… … … … … …

Mac had her head on her desk. Nobody was supposed to know about what happened between her and Will. Now everybody knew and Will was furious.

“Will?” She knocks on his door as he’s changing for the show.

“Yeah!” He calls out, frowning when he see’s it’s her.

“I um, think we need to sit down with the kids and tell them because, there’s absolutely no way that this isn’t going to get out and I think they shouldn’t hear it from anybody except us.” She shifts her weight to one leg and looks at him with fear in her eyes.

He’s still furious with her, the email went to the entire company, but he softens slightly when he realises that she’s nervous, this has the potential to cause a huge seismic shift in relationship with her children..

“Tomorrow?” Will suggests.

“Where?”

“The town house?” He suggests and Mac looks at him wide-eyed, she hadn’t set foot in the town house since she’d packed her belongings whilst Will took the kids to the park to tell them they were separating.

“Yeah. Keep it private?” He smiles softly at her to try and offer some reassurance. “Come on. Show time. Let’s get this disaster over with.”

… … … … … ….

Mac is nervous. She’s been pacing outside the house for about 10 minutes. They’d spoken briefly last night but today was going to be tough and she was nervous. She’s still trying to work up the courage to ring the bell when Will opens the door.

“Are you planning on coming in at any point?” He leans against the doorframe.

“How did you know I was here?” She asks without stopping her pacing.

“Dylan saw you in the window.”

Mac nods “Ok.” But she makes no move to come inside.

“Mackenzie?” Will calls. “Come inside.”

“Sure.” She follows him up the stairs and into the hallway. She takes a look around and the white walled interior, everything is all clean lines and there’s very few personal touches.

“This is a lot of white for a place where Dylan lives.” She laughs.

“Yeah I spend a lot of time cleaning his messes.” He chuckles.

“Hi Mom!” The whirlwind that is Dylan McAvoy comes charging down the stairs and straight past his parents into the kitchen.

“Hey!” Will calls out “Where are you going?”

“Snack!” Dylan calls back and they follow him into the kitchen.

“We’re about to have lunch.” Will picks him up off the chair he’s using to trying get into the snack cupboard in the kitchen and puts him on the floor. “Go find your sister.”

Dylan stomps off whilst Mac and Will grin “EM!!!!” He calls from the doorway to the kitchen. 

“That’s not quite what I meant.” Will shakes his head

“What!?” Emily comes into the kitchen “Oh! Hi Mom.”

“Your Mother and I need to talk to you both.” Will picks up the salad and indicates that they should help carry food into the dining room.

“About what?” Emily asks

“Is it secret?” Dylan suggests excitedly.

Will snorts “No.” Mac just glares at him.

“Lets just eat.” Mac says

“Not until you tell us what’s going on.” Emily stares her down.

Mac looks at Will for help and he just shrugs.

“It’s about why your father and I split up. You’re probably going to hear some things and I want you to hear the truth from us.” Mac starts.

“Your Mom and I got together after she graduated Georgetown.” It’s a little white lie but the kids don’t need to know that. “We’d been friends for a little while, a few months later we found out she was pregnant with you.” He points at Emily.

“Eeeew.” Emily says whilst Dylan laughs.

“Mom and Dad shared their cooties!” He’s almost crying with laughter.

“What?! You idiot that’s not how babies are made!” Emily starts before Will shakes his head at her so she tries another tactic. “They must have shared their cooties to make you as well!” Dylan is about to argue back at her.

“Enough.” Will’s exasperated shout cuts off the potential argument.

“So I was an accident?” Emily looks at her parents.

“You weren’t planned but, you are very much wanted.” Mac reaches across the table and takes her daughters hand.

“Your Mom and I loved you from the moment we found out about you.” Will places a hand on Mac’s back. Their first physical contact in three years, she tries not to let it show.

“We were together for another few years and we had your brother and then I made a mistake.” She looks down at the table, the comforting hand Will had placed on her back disappeared.

“When I met your Father, I was seeing someone named Brian Brenner.” Will felt his jaw twitch and his fist clenched. “My relationship with Brian was not good, one day when you’re a little older we’ll talk about it.” Will snorts and then tries to cover it by pretending to have the sniffles.

Mac glares at him. “I think I was struggling after Dylan was a couple of years old and Brian came back into my life.” 

“Ok.” Emily nods, the penny beginning to drop.

“I briefly, briefly started seeing Brian again and then I realised that I lov…”

“You cheated on Dad?” Emily interrupts. “Why? Did you not love him?” She was starting to get upset.

“Of course I love your Dad.” Mac says quickly. “I just, it’s hard to explain, forgot for a little while.”

“You forgot?!” Emily yells “You forget your cell phone, you don’t forget you love someone!” Will can’t help but agree with his daughter. “That’s bullshit Mom!”

“Hey, watch the language” Mac says.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Emily snaps “First you cheat on Dad and then you leave. Fuck you Mom!” She storms out of the dining room and storms up the stairs.

Dylan who’d barely been paying attention to the conversation looks at his parents “Emily cursed.” He says with a mouthful of his sandwich “Is she grounded?”

“No.” Will says.

“So can I curse?” He asks.

“No.” He looks at Mac and shakes his head at her as she goes to get up. Will gets up instead and follows his daughters path knocking on her door.

“Em?” He pushes the door open and she’s sat on her bed hugging her pillow. She looks at him tears running down her face.

“Why didn’t you say?” She asks.

“I didn’t want you to be mad at your Mom…” He starts

“Well that worked.” She snarks.

“…She loves you and Dylan more than anything in the world.” He tries and Emily laughs. “She does and whilst we split up, that doesn’t change the fact she is your Mom and you can’t talk to her like that.”

“Whatever.” Emily stares at the wall instead of her father.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am furious with her.” He says. “I’d be much happier if I never had to see her again.”

“Really?” She asks and he nods, something in his brain tells him that’s not entirely true but he ignores it.

“Yeah but, you guys should still see her. She’s still the same Mom she was yesterday.” Will sits on the bed and hugs her.

“I’m still going to be mad at her.” Emily says.

“That’s your right.” Will points out. “I’m mad at your Grandpa John.”

“Is that why we don’t see him?” Emily asks.

“One of the reasons yeah.” Will admits, he’s not ready to tell his daughter why she doesn’t get to see her paternal Grandfather. “But, I still talk to him and I promise the reason I’m mad at him is way worse than what your Mom did, which she did to me and not you by the way.”

“Will you tell me?” Emily asks.

“One day.”

“When I’m older” She whines, sometimes she thinks she’s older than her 12 nearly 13 years “Because I’m totally ready to have grown up conversations, I’m going to be a teenager soon and then I’m going to High School and college and then…”

“Wow slow down!” Will laughs. “It’s me that’s not ready for the conversation.”

“I’m sorry I yelled.” Emily finally puts the pillow down.

“It’s not me that you should apologise to.” Will points out and holds out a hand pulling her off the bed and they go back downstairs.

“Am I still allowed to go to the party tonight?” She asks hopefully.

“Sure.”


	6. December 1995

** December 1995 **

“Mackenzie?” Will can’t quite believe the girl who gave him a lecture on the evils of meat when he dared eat a chicken sandwich during one of their meetings, is sat on the floor outside a DC McDonald’s shoving chicken nuggets in her mouth, using her garment bag covered legs as a table, with burger wrappers on the floor next her. “Are you eating meat?”

It’s only when she looks up at him that he realises she’s crying. It’s a sight he’s unfortunately becoming familiar with over the last few weeks. “Are you ok?” He asks.

She looks at him with a trembling lip “I only went vegetarian for Brian.” She spits his name out with a surprising amount of venom. They must have had another fight, she’s been late to a few meetings about their show because of arguments with Brian and spent a memorable office hours session ranting about his total dismissal of her desire to be a field reporter rather than a print journalist instead of the grade he’d given her for her final project (A- instead of an A, he’d be worried she’d yell).

“Come on. Let’s get you up.” He holds out a hand and pulls her off the floor. “If you’re going to abandon your principles may as well do it in style.” He takes her garment bag and holds it in his hand with his own.

“I think I need a drink.” She mutters.

Will debates with himself for a few moments. His relationship with Mackenzie is already borderline, the last thing he should be doing is drinking with his student even if she’d had her last class with him and the grades were in and she wasn’t technically his student anymore (he was going to miss her in class) but he was still the faculty advisor on her show. However, she was over 21 so he couldn’t stop her. It seemed like if he left her alone she’d get wasted and if there’s anywhere he could think of where a pretty 23 year old girl (no, woman he tells himself) shouldn’t be wasted and vulnerable it’s Washington DC, a cesspit of sleaze if he’s ever known one. That settled it, he was going to accompany her and make sure she was safe.

“Fine. There’s an Irish bar around the corner.” He tells her and places a hand on her back leading the way.

She orders a beer (and a corned beef sandwich, he doesn’t judge), as does he and they drink in relative silence until finally she admits “Brian dumped me.”

“I guessed.” Will admits.

“Says he can’t be with someone so ideologically opposed to him.” She snorts “We want the same thing but just chose a different medium.”

“Mackenzie…”

“Mac.” She says. “My friends call me Mac.”

“I’m your teacher Mackenzie.” Will weakly tries to put up the barrier.

“What Will? Does that mean you can’t be my friend?” He feels his resolve break.

“Mac, it’s not my place to say but, Brian is an idiot, although I’m only basing this on what you’ve told me.”

“He’s actually very smart.” She defends him. “He’s probably the smartest guy I know. He just has these standards you know?”

“No. I don’t know.” He can’t quite believe she’s defending him. “Mac you’re incredibly intelligent, Brian just seems like a pretentious asshole…”

“That’s not fair. You’ve never met him.” She puts her beer down.

“An excellent point but, Mac he dumped you and that doesn’t seem like something a smart guy would do.” Will wishes he could take it back. “I shouldn’t have said that, it’s just you’re a great kid…” He trails off.

Mac obviously missed what he said as she plays with her beer mat. “What?”

“Never mind.” He’s relieved that he got away with it. “What’s in the bag?” He points the bag draped over the barstool next to him.

“Oh it’s a dress for a party I’m going to tonight.” She tells him. “Brian was meant to be my date, it’s what started the argument in the first place.” She laughs mirthlessly.

“What party?” He asks

“ACN Christmas party.” She smiles “What’s in your bag?”

“A tux, I’m going to some boring media thing an old friend from the Hill invited me to.”

Mac looks at her watch. “I should go, I have a hair appointment soon.” She finishes her beer “Thanks for the drink Will.”

“No problem Mac.” He watches her leave. ‘Your foot is dangling over the line here McAvoy. Get a grip’ He tells himself as he finishes his beer and orders another.

… … … … … …

“Well fancy seeing you here.” An English voice comes from behind him.

“Ms McHale.” Will smiles at her.

“I thought that was you.” She says casually. “I saw this guy loitering alone by the bar and I was like ‘that looks like Will McAvoy’ but it can’t be because, he said he was going to some boring media thing tonight.”

“What do you think this is?” He laughs.

“An office Christmas party.” She says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“For Atlantis Cable News, a media company. Office Christmas parties are dull. Therefore, this is a boring media thing.”

“Good argument counsellor, although if I could offer a counter argument.”

“Go ahead.”

“If you’re going to sulk at the back of the room, you’re not going to have any fun.” She smiles at him and walks away, it’s a strange smile, if he didn’t think he was being stupid he’d have said it was seductive.

“That’s trouble son.” A guy with a bowtie clutching a glass of what looks to be some kind of liquor tells him.

“You’re telling me buddy.” Will claps the stranger on the shoulder.

Will slowly starts to mingle with some of the guests and is an in-depth with a conversation with some guy named Frank (he thinks).

“So Will, what is you do?” Maybe-Frank asks him.

“I’m a college professor. Poli-Sci mainly, I’ve been known to teach the odd workshop on court room skills or speech writing.” Will is bored with the conversation.

“Broad spectrum for a Poli-Sci professor.” The guy laughs.

“Before I was professor I was a speech writer for President Bush and a DA before that.” Will sips his drink.

“I think I know who you are.” Possibly-Frank says. “I think you’re the famous Professor McAvoy.”

“The famous Professor McAvoy?” He laughs.

“Yeah, we have a student of yours working for us. Hang on.” He starts looking round the room before waving someone over. “Mac, I think I found a friend of yours.”

“Professor McAvoy!” Mac feigns surprise “What are you doing here?”

“Ms McHale, a friend invited me.” He sips his drink to hide the smirk.

“Mac, why don’t you introduce Will here to a few of the others, make sure he has a good time” He walks away.

“I see you met Jeff.” Mac laughs.

“Who?” Will asks.

“The man you were just talking to.”

“I thought he was called Frank.” Will shrugs. 

“Do you want to dance?” Mac asks him

“I don’t think that’s appropriate.” Will argues

“Are you just saying that because you’re a terrible dancer?” She challenges.

“I am an excellent dancer.” He tells her.

“If you say so.” Mac goes to walk away. “It’s just a dance Will.”

“See, you call me Will. That’s already a little bit too familiar.”

“We’re friends.” She argues “Friends call each other by their names and can share a dance at Christmas.” It’s a risky move and Mac knows it. He’s her teacher, he could lose his job but she’s attracted to him, so for one night she decides they can pretend there aren’t a million reasons why this is a bad idea.

“Ok.” He was never going to deny her, he knew it was pointless.

One dance turns into three, the final song being a slow waltz and Will feels himself pulled closer to Mac. He looks down at her and finds her looking up at him. “fuck it.” He whispers and leans down as she leans up and he catches her lips with his in a soft kiss.

“That’s not very friendly.” She murmurs against his lips.

“Shut up.” He tells her and presses his mouth against hers a little harder.

This kiss breaks and a sudden wash of realisation hits him. “Shit.” He says. “I should not have done that.” 

“Will…” She tries. “It’s ok.”

“It’s not. I’m your teacher Mac.” He takes a step back putting some distance between them. She leads him away from the dance floor and into a quiet corner of the ballroom the party is being held in.

“Will.” She takes his hand. “Surely you’ve noticed something between us.”

“I’m your teacher and I’m so much older than you.” He rants

“You can’t be that much older. What are you? Mid-thirties?” She asks.

“35 exactly.” He tells her. “You’re 23.”

“Thanks. I always wondered how old I am.” She laughs.

“This isn’t funny Mackenzie.”

“Will, it’s hardly the worlds largest age-gap!” She tries to reassure him.

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you whilst I’m on my third career! I’m your teacher, it’s against the rules. Of course I feel something but we can’t act on it, it’s wrong.” He waves his hand before rubbing it against his forehead. She was also on the rebound but he didn’t feel like pointing that out, the way she was feeling now, it would definitely be taking advantage.

“Ok.” She says, “I get it.” She smiles sadly at him.

“I’m sorry Mackenzie.” He reaches out and strokes her cheek before pulling his hand back like he’d been burnt.

“Let’s go back to the party. I’ll introduce you to some of the others.” She walks away from him and he follows like a lost puppy.

They socialise a little longer, although the spark Will saw in Mac’s eyes at the start of the party has disappeared when suddenly she stops dead in her tracks. “Brian!” She squeaks and Will’s head spins around to see what she’s seeing.

“Mac.” A scruffy kid in an ill-fitting rented tux (he assumes) runs over. “I’m sorry. I was an ass earlier.” He takes her hands “I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of your ideas.”

“You came!” She’s still surprised.

“Yeah I had to see you and apologise. I made a huge mistake.” Mac’s head goes between Will and Brian.

“Brian this is Professor McAvoy.” Will barely even registers holding out a hand to shake Brian’s.

“Cool, man. I’ve uh heard a lot about you.” Brian shakes his hand and Will just makes some vague sound of acknowledgement.

“Brian we should go.” Mac looks between them. “Let me just say goodbye to Professor McAvoy. Could you get my coat?”

Brian leaves and Will just shakes his head at her. “You don’t have to say anything. This is right, this how it should be. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your McSecret.” He winks and walks away.

… … … … … …

“Are you back together with Brian?” Will asks as she leaves their final meeting about the show before the winter break.

“Is that not inappropriate for a teacher to ask?” Mac challenges, Will holds his hands up in surrender and she stares at him with a steely defiance. “I am as it goes.”

He smiles sadly at her and she softens ever so slightly. “Merry Christmas Mackenzie.”

“Merry Christmas Professor.” She puts a lot of emphasis on the final word.


	7. May 2010

** April 2010 **

“Dad?” Emily yawns as she walks into the kitchen and looks at her father “You’re up early.”

“Huh?” Will looks up from his laptop and blinks at his daughter whose looking him with an amused sort of concern.

“Are you working?” She asks him.

“Yeah. I was.” He looks out the window and sees it’s light outside “What time is it?”

“6:30”

“Why are you up this early?”

“It’s a weekday, I’ve got school.” She cocked her head and scrunched her brow, it was Mackenzie-esque he couldn’t help but think. “What are you looking at?”

“Polling data for the Utah Republican Primary.” Will goes back to the sheets of paper in front of him.

“Why?” She laughs

“Someone faxed it to me.” He says still not looking up.

“When?” Emily goes off and switches on the coffee maker.

“2am.”

“You’ve been reading polling data for four and a half hours?” She grabs two mugs. “Why do you even care?”

“Because the Tea Party are taking control of the party and nobody is paying any attention to it.” Will starts and then looks at his daughter as she places a cup of coffee in-front of him and then starts looking around for his Blackberry.

“Cool” Emily says totally disinterested in politics.

“It’s not cool. Definitely not cool.” Will grumbles flinging papers around looking for the phone.

“Here.” Emily passes him his phone

“I’m taking this straight to Charlie as soon as I get to work.” He fires off a quick message and then takes a look at Emily who is leaning against the kitchen counter drinking her own coffee “Since when did you drink coffee?”

Emily laughs and walks out of the room without answering the question. 

… … … … … …

“Can I go to a party?” Emily asks him in the kitchen later that evening.

“When?” Will is focused on prepping his usual post show snack of a bacon and egg sandwich.

“Friday.” She asks hopefully.

“No. You’re staying at your Mom’s this weekend.”

“Why does that mean I can’t go to the party?” Emily huffs and leans against the kitchen counter.

“You need to look after your brother until she gets home.”

“He can look after himself for a few hours?” She asks hopefully flashing pleading eyes at him (normally something that works 99% of the time).

“Em, he’s 7 and he’s Dylan.” Despite herself and her indignation she laughs. “You’ll have to skip this one.”

“It’s not fair.” She whines.

“There’ll be other parties Emily.” Will picks his plate up and goes to sit at the breakfast bar. “It’s late you need to go to bed.”

Accepting defeat Emily goes to bed, or so Will thinks.

… … … … … …

“Emily? Dylan?” Will is surprised when he see’s his kids in the newsroom at around 7pm on Friday as he walks out of hair and make-up.

“Hi Dad” Dylan grins at his father.

“What are you doing here?” He’s confused and a little concerned.

“Waiting for Mom. Em’s gotta a party.” Emily could’ve killed her brother at that point.

“I thought I said you couldn’t go?” Will asks, he’s annoyed for a number of reasons. One he told his daughter she couldn’t go and two he had a date meeting him in the office, the kids didn’t need to see that (Mac on the other hand, he was counting on her seeing it).

“Mom said I could.” Emily tells him defiantly “I’m taking Dylan to Mom’s office.” And with that she walks away from him.

Will is still mad at her when he sits behind the anchor desk that night. “OK Will, good show tonight.” Mac’s voice comes through his ear and jars him out of his internal grumblings.

“Hey Mac?” Will asks “Did you know?”

“Did I know what Will?” Mac laughs at his vagueness.

“That I’d told Emily she can’t go to the party?”

“No, I didn’t know that. It was only a matter of time though” Mac muses

“Only a matter of time until what?”

“Until the kids started playing us off against each other.” She laughs

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Will grumbles

“Did you not have friends with divorced parents when you were younger?” She looks at something Joey is showing her on the graphics desk barely paying attention to Will’s flapping at the desk.

“I grew up Catholic in rural Nebraska. Divorce wasn’t something people did.” He stares into the camera.

“Well Billy, the benefit of having divorced parents other than two of every holiday is you get to play them off against each other. One says no, so you ask the other and get them to say yes.” The way Mac says it makes it sound like it should’ve been obvious. “I mean it’s an excellent tactic to employ, especially when you’ve got one parent at fault in the divorce and trying to make it up to the kids…” She allows the thought to trail off.

“Are you saying the kids are manipulating you?” Will’s surprised that she’d admit it so easily.

“I’m saying that’s the game the kids are going to play.” She puts her hair up in a ponytail. “We just need to communicate more, if they ask for something and one of us says no then, they should let the other know. We’re smart people Billy, we’re not going to get outsmarted by a 12 year old and a 7 year old.” She shakes her head. “Now, we’ve got sixty seconds, you ready to go?”

“Yeah Mac. I’m good.” He pushes the thoughts of his daughter’s betrayal out of his head and focuses on tonight’s shot at the tea party.

… … … … … …

Mac’s got her feet tucked under her on the couch as she waits anxiously for Emily to come home. She’d been stressed ever since she’d met the cheerleader that Will was taking on a date after the show and that stress had only been magnified by the fact that Emily had yet to come home from the party she’d been at.

Finally the door opens and Emily walks in. “Emily! Thank god!” Mac launches herself off the sofa and rushes to the door. “Where have you been?”

“Chelsea…” Mac gasps cutting her off “You’ve been in Chelsea?”

“No Mom.” Emily’s exasperated “Chelsea’s house. I’m sorry I didn’t realise what the time was, we were watching a movie.”

Mac wraps her in a hug “I was worried. You should’ve called.” 

“Sorry.” Emily sounds genuinely apologetic. “You’re not going to tell Dad are you?” She looks at her mother with pleading eyes.

“Only if you promise never to do it again.” She hugs her daughter again “I was minutes away from sending the NYPD out to find you.”

“I really am sorry Mom.” Emily returns Mac’s hug.

“It’s ok. Off to bed with you.”

One problem down, Mac can’t help but think. Now to deal with her feelings about Will’s date, perhaps when she was calmer, she’d talk to Emily about it and see what she knew. 


	8. January 1996

** January 1996 **

“Hey Ms McHale!” Will calls as Mac walks across the lawn, Mac stops and turns around.

“Hello Professor. How was your winter break?” She says casually, they’d left things slightly strained at the end of last semester and it was clear from Mac’s tone that she hadn’t quite forgiven him.

“Listen, I’m teaching an undergrad class this semester…”

“I’m not an undergrad.” She keeps walking, speeding up to get away from him. 

“I know” He jogs to keep up with her “I know that, it’s just it’s on the relationship between the media and politics and I’m need of a TA…” She stops abruptly and he nearly runs into her. “Jesus Mac!”

“My friends call me Mac.” She snaps and turns to look at him.

“I thought we were friends?” He asks.

“I think you made it pretty clear at the ACN party that you’re my teacher and nothing more.” She stares at him and for a moment the mask slips and he see’s the hurt.

“I’m your friend Mac and your teacher, I believe it’s you who said I can be both.” He softens his facial features. “It can’t be more than that Mac.” He says softly.

“Why?” She says sadly

“Because I’m your teacher.” He stresses “But I am also your friend.”

“Ok.” She says resigned “You need a TA?” She doesn’t know why she’s accepting the offer, she wants more and he clearly doesn’t. Mac thinks she’s just hurting herself.

“I need a TA for my class on politics and the media and I think you can offer an opinion that they’d benefit from.” He looks her in the eye and smiles.

“I’m in.” She nods “What’s the syllabus?”

“Buy you a coffee and we’ll talk about it?” She smiles at him and he nods.

“You drive a hard bargain but I’m in.” Will returns the smile, happy he can spend time with her but sad it can be nothing more.

… … … … … …

“Have you ever read Animal Farm?” Mac asks him as they sit in his office discussing his upcoming lecture on oppression of the press.

“Of course, I’ve read Animal Farm.” He takes a bite of an apple that came with the lunch he’d brought them. “I’m not sure what Comrade Napoleon has to do with the oppression of the press.”

“Did you know Orwell wrote an introduction for it that was never published with the book?”

“I did not.”

“He said ‘Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticise and oppose’” 

“I’ve heard the quote.” He offers her the vegetarian sandwich he’d purchased for her, she shakes her head and takes half of his chicken sandwich. “I didn’t realise that it was to do with Animal Farm.”

“It’s because when the book was published in 1945 there was an idea that we, as in the British…”

“I thought you were an American.” He interrupts smirking at her.

“Shut up.” She scowls at him, he thinks she’s cute when she’s angry but he isn’t going to tell her that. “That it wasn’t right for there to be criticism of an ally who’d helped us win the war.”

“Ok.” He’s not sure where she’s going with this.

“It was published in the Times in 1972.”

“Get there Mac.”

“The point being self-imposed censorship of the press is as wrong as forced censorship. Stalinist Russia in 1945 was just as bad as the Stalinist Russia and successive governments of the USSR that were viewed as dangerous by the west but, we were just afraid to say it.” She sits back in the chair.

“I like it. I think it’s a point worth covering.” He reaches for her as yet untouched eggplant, tomato and pesto sandwich and swaps his plate with hers. “You teach it.”

“What?” She looked at him shocked, first that he dared eat a meatless sandwich, he had unhealthy preoccupation with red meat and she didn’t think he knew how to eat meals without it. Secondly because, unless she was mistaken, he was asking her to teach his class for him.

“You teach it. It’s your point and the whole reason I brought you in to help teach this class, is because I think they’d benefit from your opinions.” He takes a bite of her sandwich and grimaces.

“You think I’m ready?”

“An informed youth is important to an informed society Mac, this is your chance to get the ball rolling on that.”

“Thank you.” She beams at him before taking another bite of his sandwich and he laughs “What?”

“You know that’s a chicken sandwich?” He chuckles.

“I am aware.” She pouts and it’s as cute as when she gets angry. “I just really wanted some chicken.”

“And there was me thinking whatever goes up on four legs, or has wings, is a friend.” He tells her smugly “Make a habit of eating your friends MacKenzie?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She slides her chair back and walks out leaving Will speechless in his office.

… … … … … …

He checks his watch, just in case it shows a different time to the clock in his office. Mac was late, Mac is never late to office hours.

“Professor?” There’s a knock on the slightly ajar door and Will briefly feels some hope that she’d come but realises the voice is American accented and male, it isn’t Mac that comes in but rather Brian.

“Mr Brenner?” Will’s confused. He’s met Brian once and has never taught him. “Is Ms McHale ok?”

“Mackenzie?” He views Will with an air of suspicion “She’s fine, why do you ask?”

“You know her right, you were at the ACN party in December.” He covers quickly.

“Oh yeah.” He still seems suspicious but shakes it off “She’s fine. I’m actually here to talk to you.”

“To me?” He seems surprised.

“Mackenzie talks about you a lot.” Brian reaches into a bag and pulls out a pad and pen “I’d like to do a profile on you for the Hoya. You’re an impressive guy, DA, speechwriter and now a professor. If you’ve got time that is.”

“Sure.” Will’s surprised he agrees but he’s as interested in Brian as Brian is in him and this seems like an excellent opportunity to do some research.

… … … … … …

“It’s bullshit Will.” Mac says a week later having returned to her normal office hours appointment “It’s Brian and it’s bullshit.” She looks at the copy of the Hoya on Will’s desk, open to Brian’s piece entitled _McAvoy, the one term Politico._ It’s a scathing criticism of Will who according to Brian likes to think he’s a smart but can’t seem to hold down any one career.

“Is he right?” Will asks

“Of course he’s not right. He just doesn’t like you.” Mac shrugs.

“Why wouldn’t he like me?” Will’s shocked “He’s met me once.”

“He thinks you’re responsible for corrupting me.”

“I corrupted you?”

“You got me to pander to the television masses rather than continue as a serious journalist.”

“What do you see in him?” The words are out before Will can stop them.

“Is that appropriate for my teacher to ask?” Mac looks at him “You’re also technically my boss.”

“It’s completely inappropriate for me to ask.” He says quickly.

“I don’t see anything in him anymore.” She says before he can say anything ese. “We split up.”

“I’m sorry.” He’s not but she doesn’t need to know that.

“No you’re not.” She calls him on his bullshit straight away. “Friends take their friends for a drink when they split up with douchebags.” 

“Sure.” Will can’t believe he’s agreeing to it, it’s stupid and he knows it.


	9. May and November 2010

** May & November 2010 **

****

**May 2010:**

“Party?” Will just stared at Mac.

“Yes.” Mac stares back. “A boy girl party at that.”

“Whatever happened to Luna Park?” He has sounds panicked. “Em and those 2 girls she normally hangs out with? No boys.”

“Chelsea and Tiffany.” Mac shakes her head “Her best friends since Kindergarten?”

“Yeah those ones. I take the to Luna Park every year they ride rides we get hotdogs…” He’s blustering and waving his hand in the air.

“She’s going to be 13 Will, I think she’s looking for something a little more grown-up.” Mac laughs at his pure panic at the thought of his daughter growing up. “I was going to host it at my apartment on the Friday night. I’ll take that show off, do you think you could not kill Jim if he’s in charge for one night?”

“I’m in charge. Managing Editor.” He shoots back.

“Of course you are.” She tells him “You can still take them to Brooklyn on the Saturday, Tiffany and Chelsea are staying for a sleep over.”

… … … … … …

“Actually Daddy…” Uh oh ‘Daddy’ she wanted something Will could tell. “We were hoping to do this Spa Day thing.”

“Spa Day?” He’d asked if she wanted to go to Luna Park and she’d told him no, she’d rather have a Spa Day with her friends.

“Chelsea showed me, they do like a teen package thing with massages and eyebrow shaping…” Will tunes out. “Please.”

He could never say no to her, despite the fact he was devastated that she apparently no longer wanted to hang-out with him. “Sure honey.” He tells her resigned.

“Dad?” Will turns and looks at his son. “I still want to go to Luna Park.”

Will ruffles his hair and smiles at Dylan. “We’ll go. Boys day.” At least one of his kids want to hang out with him.

… … … … … …

“Hi.” Mac looks at the smiling man in-front of her. “Is this where the party is?”

“Hello.” Mac returns the man’s smile.

“I’m dropping my nephew Chris off.” He looks down and towards the awkward looking kid stood by his side. Mac smiles and steps aside to let them in. “Wade.” The man holds out a hand and Mac shakes it.

“Mackenzie.” She smiles in return.

**NOVEMBER:**

_“This is my friend Wade”_

_“We’re a little more than friends.”_

Will replays the conversation over and over again in his mind. Mackenzie was dating. Sure, he’d been dating and he’d been making sure she knew it but this seemed serious.

_“We’ve been dating for about three months.”_

Three months. She’d been seeing this guy for three whole months. She’d not said anything to him, the kids hadn’t said anything either, if they even knew.

“Will?” Mac appeared in his office the day after the election and looked at him staring at his coffee. “Are you ok?”

“I’m tired.” He looks up at her before leaning back and looking up at the ceiling (so he could avoid having to look at her).

“Well if you will go to Hang Chews instead of home after the election coverage…” She laughs at him.

Will waves her off and grumbles that he’s fine. He’s not fine, his wife is seeing someone else and he’s not sure he’s ok with it but Mac doesn’t need to know that.

… … … … … …

“Wade. Mom’s boyfriend.” Em shrugs as she sits on the couch reading her book.

“I didn’t know your mom had a boyfriend.” Will sits next to her, he turns his head and see’s that she’s reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

“Just because she hasn’t been flaunting it like you.” She starts scribbling in her notebook.

“I’ve not been flaunting it.” He stands and waves his hand in the air.

“No, appearing in magazines with different women all the time is definitely not flaunting it.” She says sarcastically.

“I didn’t know you knew that…”

“I’m a teenage girl, TMI is passed around school all the time.” She frows at her notes. “Do you think Atticus Finch is a racist?”

“Probably. It’s 1930’s Alabama.” Will shrugs “He never volunteered to defend Tom Robinson but defend him he does and that’s because…Don’t change the subject.”

“Sorry. That usually works on Mom.” Emily puts her bookmark in her book. “They’ve been seeing each other for a while. I don’t know, he seems nice. Why do you care? You and Mom divorced it’s not like you want to date her anymore”

He’s not sure he can answer that so instead he tries “It doesn’t matter that Tom Robinson was black. The sixth amendment gives everyone the right to have counsel at their trial, Atticus was a moral man, he knew the defending him was the right thing to do but just because he provides him with legal representation to the best of his ability doesn’t mean that he’s not a racist.” Will gets up and walks away. 

“Now whose changing the subject.” She calls after him.

“Does Dylan know?” Will stops in the door and asks her.

“Everyone knows.” Emily tells him, looking at him confused. “Hey Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“You know it’s kind of embarrassing when women throw drinks in your face and it ends up in a magazine all my friends read.” 


	10. March 1996

** March 1996 **

“It’s over.” Mac says absentmindedly as she helps Will grade the final papers for their class.

“The grading?” Will laughs.

“Brian.” She mumbles.

“Huh.” It barely even registers with Will. Since January Mac and Brian have split up every few weeks and always end up back together.

“I mean it this time.” She says, “We’ve got about two months of college left before we graduate, and he wants me to move to New York with him.”

“You don’t want to live in New York?” He asks, “New York’s great. I enjoyed living there”

“I like DC and ACN have offered a paid internship.” She frowns at something she’s reading.

“That’s great.” He genuinely means it.

“So, I’ll you know, still be around for the next year.” She scribbles furiously in red pen.

“Good to know.” He’s not sure where she’s going with this.

“And I won’t be your student.” Ah. There it is.

“Ok.” He refuses to acknowledge it.

“Will…” She starts and changes her mind. “What are you plans for spring break?”

“What?”

“Spring Break.” She puts the pen down and looks at him. “Those 10 days we have off, in between semesters.”

“You think I have spring break plans?” He laughs “I’m not going to go down to Daytona and watch co-eds pour beer over their t-shirts. I’m heading for middle age…” He didn’t really want to think about that but he needed Mac to understand. “…I think I’m too old spring break.”

“Will, I’m being serious. Are you taking a vacation…”

“Why do you care?” He asked

“I’m just making conversation so are you…” She says innocently, even though Will has a feeling it’s anything but.

“Sticking around the city, I think I’m past my spring break days.” He finally answers.

“Me too.” Mac says as she again scribbles in red pen over the paper she’s reading.

“Mackenzie you’re 23 I’d hardly say you were past you’re spring break days.” He laughs

“I’ll be 24 next month and 25 next year and from there it’s really all downhill from there and suddenly I’m 30…”

“Hey!” He scowls at her. He’s closer to 40 than she is to 30 and he really doesn’t need a reminder of that.

“Sorry” She laughs “Spring break isn’t really a thing in Britain, I experienced it last year and I wasn’t a fan.”

“So what are your plans?” Like Mac before him, he scowls at something written on the paper he’s grading.

“Reading, I’ve got two whole weeks and I just picked up a few books.” She lifts the small brown bag he’d wondered about when she walked into his office. He holds out a hand and she hands it to him, he reads the titles, scowls and hands them back to her.

“I don’t know what any of them are.”

Mac laughs “Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Pasternak. A friend sent them to me.”

“Right, did you friend realise that he sent them to you in Russian?” He stares at her.

“I would imagine so. He’s Russian.” Mac shrugs

“Do you speak Russian?” He asks and she nods

“And conversational German.”

“And conversational German.” He shakes his head smiling.

“And French, but my father works for the UN and I used to intern for him in the summer so really it was a necessity.” She says it so nonchalantly he can’t quite believe it.

“You speak four languages?” He puts his pen down.

“Yes.” She carries on with her grading.

“And you’re going to spend your two weeks off school reading classic Russian literature in Russian?” He puts his pen down and leans back in his chair.

“What else am I going to do?” She asks

“Go out with friends?” He suggests “Dinner, a bar maybe a show? Whatever it is college students do these days.”

“Are you offering?” She fires back quickly.

“Mackenzie…”

“Friends right? I’m just asking if a friend wants to go to dinner and maybe see a show.” She smiles at him and Will feels his resolve cracking. Mac scribbles something down on a scrap of paper and hands it to him.

… … … … … …

“Hey Mac?” Jeff her boss calls across the bullpen to her.

“Yeah?” She walks over to him.

“How come you’re not away for spring break?” Her boss asks her.

“Oh, I didn’t fancy it, I thought I’d take the time to chill out.” Not that work is exactly chilled out. 

“Right, anyway, you saw the Menéndez brothers were found guilty earlier today?”

“I saw.”

“Well we’re holding a panel on the trial and some of the legal aspects. I wasn’t really listening but New York asked for it, so we’re doing it.” He’s making notes on his paper as he talks to her.

“Ok.” Mac was confused.

“That professor of yours, wasn’t he a prosecutor back in New York?”

“Yeah, but didn’t the murders happen in California?”

“Yeah but we’re a bit light on guests and one who prosecuted crime in any state will do for me.” He walks away handing her the details written on a piece of paper.

“I’ll ask him.” She wasn’t sure he’d say yes, but it was an excuse to call him. It takes her a while, she’d tried the university first and then had to go through the phone book before she was finally able to find his number.

“Hello?” He answers after a few rings.

“Will?” She hopes she found the right number, surprisingly there were two other W. McAvoy’s in the DC phonebook.

“Mackenzie?” He asks with surprise on hearing that familiar British accent.

“I found you in the phone book.” She says before he can ask how she got his number.

“Ok.” Will pauses. “Are you ok?”

“I was told to ask if you would appear on a panel about the Menéndez brother murders since you were a prosecutor…”

“In New York, I can’t speak with any kind of certainty on the laws in other states.”

“I said that, but, we’re in a pinch and…”

“Sure.” Will was surprised he was agreeing to it.

“Really?”

“Yeah sure, what’s the worst that can happen?” He laughed.

… … … … … …

“Ok so this is the newsroom.” Mac shows him “This is my desk” He laughs when he see’s it cluttered in paper and post-it notes. “I’ll take you through to hair and make-up now.”

Will follows Mac through to hair and make-up and she sits and talks to him whilst they wait for the make-up artist. “I really owe you one for this.”

“Nah, I think we’re even. You really helped me out with that class last semester.” 

“You were my faculty advisor for my show and there was the shit show with the piece Brian wrote” She scrunches her face up as she says his name.

“Mac. It’s not a competition!” He laughed “I’m happy to do it.” He laughed again at her pout.

The segment went off without a hitch, Will was affable and held a commanding presence on the panel. Mac’s EP was over the moon and she watched leaning against the wall as Jeff talked with Will.

He walked over smiling at her. “So, I wasn’t awful.”

“Apparently not.” She grins at him.

“They asked me if I’d consider appearing again if they ever need a legal contribution.” He smiled.

“What did you say?” She asks pushing off from the wall and Will leads her back towards the studio with his hand on her back.

“I said yes.” He says it like it’s no big deal.

“Really?”

“Yeah sure.” They stop at her desk. “Do you want to grab some dinner?”

“What?” It catches her off guard, normally she’s the one suggesting they socialise outside of work.

“Dinner?” She’s surprised. “Sure.”

“Friends take friends to dinner when they do something nice for them.” Will grins at her and holds up her jacket for her to slip her arms into.

… … … … … …

“So you enjoyed playing TV star for the night?” Mac asks as she pokes at her lasagne.

Will chuckles “Hardly say one TV appearance for one panel hardly constitutes TV star…”

“So you’re not considering another career change then?” She smirks at her food.

“And give your boyfriend another chance to rip me apart in the Hoya?” He laughs, although he wasn’t willing to admit Brian’s article was still bothering him.

“Ex-Boyfriend.” Mac says firmly.

“Right.” Will isn’t sure why but it makes him happy. Mac had told him two weeks ago that she’d split up with Brian, normally they’d have got back together by now, but it seems to be sticking this time. He knows he shouldn’t be happy about it, they’re friends sure (and isn’t that inappropriate enough?) but she’s still a student. Yet, when they were grading in his office she’d slipped him her phone number and it was still tucked safely in his wallet.

“We had the conversation…” She starts

“I remember but, experience tells me your break-ups with Brian don’t normally last very long.” He aims for casual but it comes out slightly more barbed than he intended.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She’s hurt and her tone lets Will know it.

“It means that since I’ve known you, you and Brian break up and get back together at least twice a month. I find it hard to keep up.” Will doesn’t know why he said it.

“Perhaps it’s because the person I like doesn’t seem to want anything to do with me.” Mac fires back

“I think it’s because you can’t make up your mind.” Will shrugs

“Are you kidding me?” Mac looks at him horrified

“Mackenzie. You flirt with me.” He says firmly “And then two days later you’re walking though campus holding hands with that asshole…”

“You don’t even know him!” She hisses

“Really? It certainly feels like I do.” He then changes to high pitched poor imitation of Mac’s accent “Will I split up with Brian. Will I’m back with Brian, he promises that he’s changed and he’s sorry he mocked whatever it is he mocked. Will you don’t get it Brian just wants… I wish Brian cared more about this thing than… he doesn’t mean to be rude, it’s just…”

“Our relationship is complicated.” Mac cuts him off.

“Our relationship is complicated Mackenzie. Complicated and inappropriate. Your relationship with Brian really isn’t that complex.” Will laughs “You just don’t know how to be an adult yet and think it’s all about pleasing him when really…” Whatever he’d been about to say dies on his tongue as Mac’s drink comes flying into his face and she pushes her chair back and storms out of the restaurant.

… … … … … …

She’s curled up on an armchair with one of her books, not really reading but fuming about what Will told her when her phone rings. “Hello?” She answers finally after forcing herself off the sofa to answer it.

“Mac? It’s me, don’t hang-up.” Will answers quickly. “Listen I’m on the payphone outside. I’m sorry.”

“Will it’s late and you know someone as young as me should really be in bed already…” She’s about to slam the phone down when she suddenly hears him.

“Please don’t hang-up, I’m sorry.” He sounds genuine and she sighs into the phone.

“Apartment 7, second floor.” This time she does hang up the phone and waits for the knock on the door.

“Hi.” He says smiling weakly when she answers the door and holds up a plastic bag “I brought the rest of dinner.”

“Will…” She stands blocking access to her apartment.

“I’m sorry Mackenzie. I was an ass.”

“You were.” Mac frowns when he doesn’t respond and opens her mouth to speak “You were patronizing and dismissive…”

“And just generally an asshole.” Will finishes.

“I know what I want Will.” She’s determined. “You just don’t like it.”

“Mackenzie. You’re brilliant, you’re smart and you’re beautiful but…” He tries to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

“But I’m too young and I’m your student” Her head wobbles whilst she gruffly impersonates him.

“I’ll lose my job.” He snaps.

“Do you even like your job?” She asks him. “Whenever we talk about it you seem to moan about it. You hate undergrads.”

The question catches him off guard. He’s never been asked if he actually likes teaching before, if he’s honest really doesn’t. Then as if she can read his mind she asks “Stop thinking Will and try something that will make you happy.”

So he does, he steps forward through the door and puts the bag on the floor, cups her face before leaning in and kissing her softly. Mac sighs into the kiss and Will takes the opportunity to slide his tongue past her now open lips. His hands move to her hips and he pushes her backwards into the apartment.

The next morning he wakes with her naked and curled into his side. He uses the arm behind her to slowly stroke down her arm, she smiles against him as he wakes placing a gentle kiss against his chest.

“Good morning.” She sounds happy and he frowns. He’d been awake for a while, thinking and was possibly about to ruin everything.

“This can’t happen again…” He starts and Mac pushes him away.

“Will…” He cuts her off turning to face her and placing a finger on her lips to silence her.

“Not whilst you’re still my student.” He removes his finger and replaces it with his lips, kissing her slowly and sensually. “It’s March now. You graduate in May. We’ll re-visit this in May.” He says after he breaks the kiss and then swings his legs out of bed and gets dressed.

He kisses her once more before he leaves, she’s yet to get out of bed and she smiles softly when he leaves. It’s only two more months, she just hopes he doesn’t find another excuse before then.


	11. December 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue borrowed from Aaron Sorkin

** December 2010 **

Things between Mac and Will had been slightly strained since he’d learned about Wade. He’d made the effort to try and keep his dates out of the Newsroom Mac however, had Wade on the show on a couple of times and that was hard for him. He hated watching them leave together at the end of broadcasts or seeing his arm around her shoulders on the occasions they end up at Hang Chews. He’s been avoiding Hang Chews recently using going home to the kids as an excuse but if he’s being totally honest, he hates seeing her with another guy. He misses her. 

“Hey.” Will leans against the doorframe of Mac’s office door.

“Do you need something Will?” Mac glances over at him.

“Do you want to grab some dinner at some point this week after a show?” He shoves his hands in his pocket and aims for casual.

“Sorry what?” Was he seriously asking her out? After the last few weeks of passive aggressive behaviour from him in regards to Wade. She was purposefully ignoring all of the behaviour from him since she’d told him about Brian.

Will is equally as confused as she is, he was planning on having a conversation with her about Christmas, the first where she’d be in the same country since their divorce. He meant to just ask her if they could talk but apparently his mouth wasn’t working on the same wavelength as his brain.

“It’s your first Christmas back and I think we need to have a conversation about it.” The words that came out this time were (thankfully) the same as what was going through his head.

“Oh!” She was surprised by that, a little disappointed he only wanted to talk to her about Christmas but she wasn’t really addressing those thoughts “Sure. How about before the show though? I heard the festive specials in the executive dining room are fantastic and I need an in.” She winks at him. It was self defence on her part really, essentially putting a time limit on dinner reduced the possibility of an argument breaking out between them if they only had time to discuss the issue of Christmas.

“Sure. Tonight?” He feels nervous, hoping she’ll say yes.

“Sorry Will…” Will feels his stomach drop “I’ve got plans with Wade for a later dinner tonight. Tomorrow?”

“Sure.” He offers a weak smile and walks out the door.

… … … … … …

The senior staff start filing out of the conference room following the 4pm rundown meeting and Mac hangs back waiting for Will so they can grab an early dinner before the show. “You ready?” She asks him and he nods and follows her from the conference room to the elevators.

They’re seated by a window and Mac smiles wistfully at the snow falling outside. Will takes a moment whilst she’s distracted to smile at the happy look on her face.

“So Christmas…” He starts before he let’s himself get distracted any further.

“I love the snow.” She murmurs before looking at Will “What were you thinking?”

“I uh don’t know what your plans are but I’ve got show tickets on Christmas Eve.”

Mac smiles at the memory that pops into her head. Will had been taking the kids to the theatre on Christmas Eve since they’d moved to New York permanently. Their fist Christmas in the city had been chaos, they’d been in the city for a few weeks, Dylan was 13 months old and Emily was six and far too excited to let them try and get anything sorted in time so Will had called his agent secured two tickets to the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast (which happened to be Emily’s favourite film at the time) and got her out of the house long enough for Mac to finally wrap the presents and hide them, not well but well enough that it was unlikely Emily would find them. He’d carried her in to that first New York apartment fast asleep on his shoulder. He’d checked the baby and ate the cookies and drank the milk that had been left out for “Santa” and then wished his wife a Merry Christmas before dragging himself out of bed to leave the gifts out. Emily had run in full of excitement the following morning and they’d spent a perfect day in their PJ’s still surrounded by unpacked boxes, Will had spent a few tense hours the days trying to locate their Christmas decorations and had only successfully found half. It was probably both Mac and Will’s favourite ever Christmas.

“What are you seeing this year?” Mac asked.

“Wicked.” Will shrugged “Emily’s choice this year.”

“And she chose a real show?” Mac smirks at him and Will grins. “I bet Dylan is over the moon”

“He was hoping for the Lion King.” He’d taken them both to the Lion King the year before and Dylan had loved it and asked to go again this year.

“Yeah, so I mean I’ll spend the day with them on Christmas Eve if you want to spend Christmas Day with them?” He asked quietly surprising Mac that he’d offered to let her have Christmas with the kids.

“If you’re happy with that Will?” She asked nervously.

“Yeah” He shrugs “You’ve missed Christmas these last three years and you always enjoyed it far more than I do.”

Mac smiles warmly at him “Thank-you Billy.”

Will smiled back and they moved on to splitting the kids Christmas lists.

… … … … … …

Will knocks the door at Mac’s apartment on Christmas Eve with Emily and Dylan. They’d been to the theatre and for dinner and Will was dropping them at Mac’s for Christmas, he offers a weak smile when Mac opens the door. It was the first time he wouldn’t be with his kids on Christmas morning but he supposes this is just how it’s supposed to be, even if he was surprised by how sad he was actually feeling.

“Hi Mom” Emily says clutching her playbill and walks inside whilst Dylan frowns.

“Mom?” He asks concerned.

“Hmm” Mac tears her eyes away from the concerning look on Will’s face.

“Santa knows I’m here right?” He looks nervous. “He’s not going to drop everything to Dad’s house?”

“No kiddo.” Will answers. “Santa knows exactly where you’re staying.” Dylan nods and follows his sister.

“Do you want to come in for a drink?” Mac fidgets awkwardly by her door.

“Hmmm?” Will looks up from where he’d been staring at his shoes. “No, no. It’s fine.” He shoves his hands in his pocket and pulls out a small wrapped gift which he thrusts towards Mackenzie with a “Merry Christmas Mac.” Before walking away.

Later Mackenzie sits on her couch a glass of red wine and Santa’s cookies turning the gift wrapped box over in her hands before opening it and looking shocked at the familiar shade of robin egg blue that adorns Tiffany boxes. She cautiously opens the box and smiles at the rose gold olive branch necklace inside. “Oh Billy…” She whispers and runs her thumb over the jewellery

… … … … … …

**New Years Eve**

“Don’t call him honey. It makes me crazy.” The words slip out before Will can stop them. “I didn’t say that.” He says quickly. “It came out of my mouth. Just words.” Mackenzie just looks at him whilst Wade continues talking apparently not noticing Will’s little slip.

Will kicks Wade out of his office so he can speak with Mac. “You can’t have your boyfriends lobbying me to go easier on them.”

Apparently, the olive branch he’d extended on Christmas had been retracted, it had been a great 6 days but it would seem 2011 was starting the same way the last few years had ended, with Will absolutely furious with her. “Hang on, he wasn’t lobbying for you to go easier! He was pitching you a story.”

“I’ve got a staff of paid professionals to do that for me.” He snaps back.

“Mostly by using inside sources like Wade.” She throws back and Will knows it’s true. He’s willing to concede the point until Mac continues “And it’s not boyfriends. It’s one boyfriend.”

Will felt a sharp pain in his stomach at hearing her say it. “So he’s your boyfriend?”

“I guess he is.” Mac hears the hint of hurt in his voice and chooses to ignore it.

“I mean that’s what you call him?” He has no idea why he’s following this line of questioning. Nothing good can come of it.

“I call him Wade.” Mac responds cooly.

“When you introduce him, do you say…” Seriously he has to stop this before he says something that’s going to hurt both of them.

“Yes!” Mac yells before throwing his dating history in his face.

The evening didn’t progress much better, Will had been talking to Nina Howard and Mac had questioned Sloan on why she’d set her husband (present tense) up with a gossip columnist. Luckily like Will’s slip in her office, it hadn’t appeared that Wade had noticed.

“Hang on, looks like it’s coming any second” Mac tells Sloan and Wade as they watch Will crash and burn with Nina and she waits for the inevitable drink to go flying in his face, which it does a few seconds later. “There it is.” 

… … … … … …

Will looks down at the copy of page six on his desk.

_McAvoy, who was seen two days after the party courtside at a Knicks game with his son doesn’t appear to have had much luck with women of late. He’s rarely (actually never) pictured with the same woman twice…_

This is exactly what he needed. He wasn’t sure what was worse being considered a lady’s man or a complete disaster.

**Text From Emily:**

**Dad. I thought we talked about not doing embarrassing**

**things that end up in Newspapers.**

‘Great!’ He thinks. Now his daughter is mad at him as well. What more could possibly go wrong?


	12. May 1996

** May 1996 **

“I graduate next week.” Will looks up, it’s the start of office hours and finals are over with most classes winding down. He wasn’t expecting anyone to turn up, although he feels like he should’ve expected her. Mac never misses office hours.

“Congratulations.” He indicates to the chair opposite him and she saunters in before closing the door.

“My parents aren’t coming.” She tries to sound like it’s not bothering her and fails miserably as she looks out the window in his office.

“I’m sorry.” He genuinely means it. His own parents had missed both of his graduations. Not that he’d wanted his father there but, he’d have liked his Mother to see him become the first McAvoy to graduate college.

“There’s a debate in the UN on some resolution or another.” She looks away from the window but focuses instead on his pen pot.

“Resolution 1056, the settlement plan for Western Sahara.” Will says without really thinking, Mac just shakes her head and laughs, of course he knows what it is.

“My brother is expecting his first child as well, so my mother is staying with them, it’s the first grandchild.” She shrugs “They came to my first graduation.” 

“That’s a shame.” He tells her sincerely, his brain already making plans to do something special for her. “I’ll take you out for a celebratory dinner.” She smiles nervously still not meeting his eyes.

“After our last dinner?” She finally looks at him and smirks.

He thinks back to March and their disastrous dinner date in which she threw her drink in his face and he’d finally crossed that line by sleeping with her. Since March he’d made a valiant effort and curbing her crush, they didn’t go for meals or the occasional drink anymore and he’d tried to keep his interactions with her strictly professional, apart from one slip up with her birthday in April that ended with him making out with her in his office over take-out and a meeting about their show. Every week however, she turned up to office hours without fail and the conversations often had very little to do with her school work and more to do with her plans for the future and Will’s previous life in the White House and New York. Now here he was, offering to take her on a celebratory graduation dinner and questioning his own sanity, he may not be her teacher anymore but she’s still 12 years younger than he is. “This time will be different.” He says confidently.

… … … … … …

She meets him at the restaurant the day after graduation. He’d offered to pick her up but her roommates hadn’t left yet and she didn’t want them to ask questions about why a professor was picking her up for a dinner.

“Hi Will.” She beams at him and glances down at the gift bag in his hand. He smiles back at her nervously and leads her into the restaurant his hand on her lower back.

He beats the maître d’ to pulling out her chair for her and hands her the bag “these are for you.” Mac thanks him and looks in the bag first pulling out a small plush Jack the Bulldog which makes her laugh and then a long thin gift-wrapped box. She looks at Will with a confused look, surely he hasn’t bought her jewellery “Something every good journalist needs.” He tells her giving absolutely nothing away.

She unwraps the package and pulls out the Mont Blanc box opening it gasping at the personalised pen “It’s really lovely Will. Thank you.”

“You can use it when you sign your first contract to do real news.” He tells her any further conversation being interrupted by the waiter bringing over the bottle of champagne that he’d pre-ordered. He hands her a glass “Congratulations Mackenzie.” They clink the glasses. “How does it feel now you’ve got to join the real world?”

“Awful.” She laughs “But…” She trails off and chews her lip between her teeth.

“But what?”

“I’m happy I graduated for one reason.” She waits a beat “I’m no longer your student.”

He sighs “I was wondering when you’d bring that up.”

“Why are you so against this Will?” She asks softly. “Are you not attracted to me?”

The bluntness of her question catches him off guard. “Jesus! Mackenzie, no.”

“No you’re not attracted to me?” She’s confused.

“You’re beautiful.” He says so quietly she almost misses it. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Mac feels the blush rising in her cheeks but she’s more confused than she was before. He thinks she’s beautiful, they’ve already slept together but still he seems to be against them having any kind of relationship “Then what’s the problem Will?”

“I’m so much older than you.” He puts the glass down. “12 years. I’m on my third career and you’re just starting out.” If he’s being honest he’s terrified of what happens if she leaves him, he thinks he might fall in love with her if he gets into a relationship and doesn’t know what’ll happen if it ends.

“What’s the worst that can happen?” She asks like she can read his mind and he just raises his eyebrows in response. “I really like you.” She admits. “I want to see what happens.” She looks at him with those big brown eyes and he feels his resolve finally give out.

“Ok.” He tells her.

“Ok?” She asks hopefully. “So does this count as our first official date?”

“Rather this one than the last dinner.” He chuckles and she laughs.

“So first date.” She ponders for a second “Tell me about yourself then Will.”

“What do you want to know?” He feels the nerves creep back in, there’s things about his past he’s not ready for anyone to know about yet.

Everything. She thinks but instead settles for “Where are you from?”

“Why are you…”

“It’s a date Will, people get to know each other on dates.”

“I grew up in Nebraska on a farm in a town, outside a town that’s outside Lincoln.” He can tell her that much. She doesn’t need to know about the hell that was life on that farm.

“Brothers or sisters?” She prompts.

“Both. I’m the oldest of four. One younger brother and two younger sisters.”

“I’m the youngest of four.” She tells him. “Two sisters and a brother, are you close with your siblings?”

“Yeah.” How could he not be after they went through what they did, they speak regularly but he hasn’t seen them for a while. “We talk. Where did you grow up?” He was curious, he knows her father is a diplomat and she speaks four languages so he wanted to know more about how and where she grew up.

“It’s not that interesting.” Mac shrugs. “I’d lived in four different countries by the time I was 11.”

Will laughs he can’t believe that she wouldn’t call that interesting. “Name them.” He challenges.

“The USA until I was five. Then France for a year, Belgium for a year and then my father took a post in East Germany so I lived there until I was 11 and then I moved back to the UK for boarding school and there I stayed other than summers where I’d fly out to New York or Paris to meet my father who was back at the UN.”

“Not that interesting at all.” He says sarcastically. “Boarding school huh?”

“Hmm” She mumbles in agreement “And then Cambridge where I read History and Politics.”

“Hopefully you read a bit more at Cambridge than just two books.” He laughs and she informs him that when you study at an ancient University you’re not ‘studying’ but rather ‘reading.’ Will thinks this is stupid and tells her so.

“I stayed in what I’m generously calling a town, really it was more of a dirt road until I was 16 then I moved an hour and a half up the road to Lincoln. From Lincoln to New York and then I saw a lot of the country whilst on the campaign trail and working for the White House.”

“I’d really love to do a Presidential Campaign. Follow it around the country, be there for all the highs and lows.”

“It’s really not that exciting.” He tells her as he drains his champagne glass and goes to pour another. “It’s a lot of drinking and cheap hotels all whilst listening to the same stump speech over and over again.” He pauses and looks her right in the eye “You can do better than that Mackenzie.”

She smiles at him, the conversation flows much easier through dinner as Will and Mac learn more about each other as they go and neither are willing to let the evening end and they stand outside the restaurant as they wait for Will’s car to be brought round by the valet. Mac smiles as she feels Will’s hand envelop hers.

Once the car arrives and they’re both situated inside Will goes to put it in drive when he feels her hand cover his “Will…” She looks at him taking her bottom lip in-between her teeth again. He wonders if she knows how cute he finds it. “I’m not ready to go home yet.”

“Would you like to come over for a coffee?” He asks and she nods, so despite his better judgement he drives them back to his place and leads her up the stairs and into his apartment.

Mac can’t help but look around the lounge, there’s not a lot of personal touches but there’s a comfy looking couch, a well stocked bookshelf and she’s surprised to see an acoustic guitar in the corner. “I’ll make us those coffees.” Will says awkwardly as he watches her explore his personal space.

“You play guitar?” She asks him as he goes to walk out of the room and he smiles and nods. “Are you a Rockstar on the side?”

“I’m a professor on the side.” He jokes and watches with interest as she walks over and runs her hands down the strings.

“Play me something?” She asks as she picks the guitar up and hands it to him.

“I don’t know anything by the Backstreet Boys.” He challenges before taking the guitar sitting on the couch and launching into a rendition of Crazy Love by Van Morrison.

Mackenzie sits on the couch close to him and listens as he plays “Smooth McAvoy.”

He just raises his eyebrows and grins at her before he stops playing turns his head towards her and kisses her slowly. She gasps in surprise and he uses the opportunity to deepen the kiss. He raises one hand to cup the back of her head and uses the other to place the guitar on the coffee table and pulls Mac into his lap running his hand up her back and into her hair as he draws her into her lap.

Mac straddles his lap and he pushes his hips into her taking one of the hands from the back of her head and running it down her side before pulling away and grinning at the small sound of protest that Mac makes. He wraps his arms around her waist and stands lifting her with him. Mac yelps in surprise and Will laughs before carrying her back to his bedroom where he gently lowers her on the bed and kisses her again. He moves to her neck whilst reaching behind her and lowering the zipper of the dress she’d worn to dinner.


	13. February 2011

“Breathe.” Mac laughs as Will just stares open mouthed. “Use your words Will.”

“No.” He shakes his head.

“Will…” Mac tries not to laugh.

“I swear to god Mackenzie I’m locking her in the house until she’s thirty, then I might let her out to go to Barnard…” He waves his hand

“Where, in a women’s only college she meets an attractive poli sci professor…”

“Fine! I’m locking her up until she’s 50!” Will throws both his arms in the air.

“Will they’re 13! It’s a valentine’s date to see that Justin Beaver movie.” Mac laughs “She’s hardly moving in with him and eloping.”

“Ok, first of all it’s Beiber not Beaver.” Will sparks up a cigarette

“Why would you know that?” Mac laughs

“Secondly, I was once a 13 year old boy and I know how they think.” He ignores her questions about Beiber.

“I think it’s cute.” Mac shrugs.

“Please tell me we’re not talking about Will.” Charlie beams at the two of them as he walks in the studio. 

Will pulls a face at Charlie and shrugs “I’m cute!”

“Of course you are.” Mac tells him barely concealing the sarcasm.

Charlie looks at Mac, realising that he wasn’t going to get much sense out of Will looks to talk to her instead “I need to talk to you after the show.”

“No problem.” She says clearly not paying attention to Charlie as she listens to Herb who’d been trying to get her attention via the IFB. “Will, 30 back. We’re going back to Elliot.” She walks out of the studio, Charlie smiles at Will and follows her out.

The rest of the show passes unremarkably and Will’s about to walk past the control room when he catches sight of Wade and Mac leaning against the wall, he tries not to listen as she arranges to meet him at Hang Chews. Will wanting no part in that, having had enough of spending time with him when he appears as a guest, decides he’ll forego the bar and go home to find a reason to ground Emily instead so she doesn’t go on her valentines date.

Wade walks off and Will finally starts walking back towards the Newsroom behind her.

“Herb” Mac calls the attention of their director

“We were 17 seconds heavy on Bernanke which meant we had to squeeze…”

Will smiles “Wait, wait everybody watch this!”

Knowing exactly what he’s up to Mac pouts and declares “There’s nothing to watch…”

The mocking continues as they all go to the conference room, with Mac revealing Will’s tap dancing lessons (one of these days he’ll find out which of his sisters sold him out on that) and the fact he cries over Rudy whilst he mocked her confusion over this old house (She tried not to let the memories of the nights they’d spend tucked up in bed watching that before they go to sleep hurt her).

Mac feels like she’s finally getting control of the meeting back when Charlie knocks on the glass and pulls them out of the meeting. She and Will leave the meeting with Mac shooting a concerned look at Jim who was currently receiving some form of first aid from Maggie and they followed Charlie to Will’s office.

“It’s another TMI Story…” Charlie starts and Mac can’t help but think of course it is, wondering what they’ve managed to dredge up now. They haven’t yet found the circumstances behind Will’s sudden departure from Georgetown and she wonders if this is it.

Mac hears very little after Charlie tells her that Wade is running for congress and TMI is running the story that she’s trying to get him elected. She slowly panics not really engaging in the conversation that Will is having with Charlie.

“It’s Mac! She’s annoyingly ethical.” Will coming to her defence is something that surprises her, especially where Wade was concerned. He wasn’t a fan of their relationship, she knew that he would change the subject with the kids whenever they brought up Mac and Wade.

Mac’s shock and confusion at his sudden support tripled and she forgot how to speak when Will uttered “Nobody in their right mind would risk losing you.”

… … … … … …

Will admitted to Nina that the ethics of Wade coming on the show were fair, he could point out that Wade totally played Mackenzie but that wouldn’t help either of them and if he was being honest he was still a little mad about her seeing Wade so if she suffered that small humiliation then he’d live with it. However, he wasn’t going to let Nina completely trash her reputation with a story about how she almost got her whole team killed.

“I’m running a story about how you hired an incompetent EP because she used to be your wife and she dumped you.”

“I hired the best EP in the business.” He was briefly grateful that Mac’s contract was confidential, although he doubted he could stop the Lansing’s leaking it if they really wanted to. “Despite her being my ex-wife who dumped me.” He’d take that one on the chin for Mac, if people wanted to think she dumped him then that was ok with him.

He wrote out the cheque for $50,000 dollars and was fully prepared to let Nina have it, it’s the cost of protecting his family, he’s happy to pay it. “Hey, we’re journalists…” He hears the words leave her mouth ‘ah, fuck it’ he thinks as he voids the cheque.

… … … … … …

He stood with his arm wrapped around her as they watched the line of staffers snake in and out of his office as they all deposited cheques on his desk. The hug between them had felt right, it was the first time since Charlie had dropped the Wade bombshell on her that she didn’t have a feeling of pure dread in her stomach.

“Do you want to come over and grab a drink?” Will asked and she looked at him in shock.

“What?” She was shocked. Only a couple of hours ago she was dumping Wade on the terrace at AWM and now Will was asking her for a drink. Of course, taking Mac for a drink after she got dumped was almost a Will and Mac tradition at this point (with one obvious exception). 

“A drink.” He says again “Alcoholic or otherwise.”

“Uh…” Her brain is still struggling to process the shift in Will’s behaviour.

“Come over for a drink. I’ve got a bottle of that red you like.”

“Come over?” The stress of the Wade situation had obviously killed her because there was no way Will was inviting her over for a drink with him. 

“Sure.” She doesn’t think it’s a good idea but, she’ll take what he’s offering.

Once everyone has deposited a cheque and Will has given a heart felt thanks to everyone who remains in the newsroom he follows Mac to her office and holds her coat as she slips her arms into it and she feels his hand drift to her lower back as they walk out of the office, a familiar intimacy from him that causes a twinge of pain in her heart. She misses him and this.

“You broke up with Wade?” He asks hoping his voice doesn’t betray the nerves he’s feeling. He looks out of the window of the car to avoid looking at her.

“How do you know that?” Is nothing secret in her life anymore? 24 hours ago nobody knew she broke up with Wade, that Wade was playing her and now everybody knew that, along with ACN’s morning show helpfully announcing to the world that she was the one who cheated on Will.

“You’re coming home with me on Valentines, that implies you don’t have plans.” He finally turns at looks at her, she’s staring back at him a look of mild confusion on her face. “You’ve been with him for about six months, I would assume that would mean you have Valentine’s plans.”

“I broke up with him. He was just using me to further his career.” Mac tries to keep it light, although Will notices the hurt in her voice.

“I’m sorry.” He genuinely means it. Did he like Wade? No. Was he happy about Mac’s relationship? No. Did he want to see her hurt? Sometimes yes, but not like that.

“I deserved it.” That causes him to frown and he reaches down and squeezes her hand.

“No. You didn’t.” He lets go of her hand as soon as he says it.

They don’t speak again until they’re pulling up outside the townhouse, he reaches for the car door handle when Mac puts a hand on his shoulder “Wait, Billy look.” She points out of the windscreen and he can see his daughter stood with the scrawny kid who thinks he’s good enough for her.

The boy leans in and places a quick kiss on her lips before he waves at her before running back to the cab they’d obviously just gotten out of. “Did he just wave at her?” Will asks incredulously whilst fighting the urge to get out of the car and launch this kid across the river to New Jersey.

“It’s sweet.” Mac says happily, Will wonders how the fuck she can be happy about this. “Billy?”

“Hmmm.” He’s not really listening to her, he’s just fighting his protective paternalistic instincts.

“I think I’m just going to go home.” She leans over and kisses his cheek “Thanks for not being smug about this.” She gives him a shove and he gets out of the car and watches as it takes Mac back downtown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some lines once again borrowed from the original script.


	14. August 1996

Mac paced nervously in Will’s apartment, they’d been officially dating since May and Will was finally getting comfortable with their relationship, he’d stopped panicking (too much) about their age gap and they’d settled into something of a routine and they were still learning little bits a pieces about each other. Their relationship was good, they were still figuring it out and Mackenzie liked him a lot, then she realised that she late.

“Honey?” Will had been watching her for a few minutes. He’d come home from his meeting at the school and found her pacing.

She startled and turned to look at him, tears in her eyes. “Hi Will.”

“What’s wrong?” He had a million and one scenarios running through his mind.

Mac takes a deep breath and looks at him, lips trembling “I’m late.”

“Late for what?” He laughs, not quite believing that this freak out was over her being late for something. He knew she had a thing for punctuality, but this was extreme even for her.

“No Will.” She stops and stares at him. “I’m late as in my period is late.”

“Oh.” The pieces finally clicking into place. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” She wobbles shifting her weight between one foot and the other, lip between her teeth and her big eyes looking up at him.

He knows he needs to do something, so he wraps her up in arms and tells her it’ll be ok. “So what happens now?”

“I take a test.” She mumbles against his chest.

“Do I need to go out and…” He starts not really sure what his role here is.

“In the bag on the table.” Will looks over to his coffee table and spots the Walgreens bag.

15 minutes later Will is sat next to Mackenzie on the floor in his bathroom. “How much longer?” She asks him. 

Will picks the box up and looks “Should be ready.” He picks up the stick and looks at her. “You ready?”

“No.” He uses his free hand and squeezes hers.

“Me neither.” He tells her softly and looks at her. He flips the test “A little plus sign.” He turns towards her “What does that mean?”

Mac starts to cry and pulls her hand from his and puts it on her stomach “It means I’m pregnant.”

“We’re having a baby?” He turns his head towards her.

“Yeah.”

“Shit.” He feels in his pocket for his cigarettes and then remembers he probably shouldn’t be smoking around her. “What do you want to do? I mean there’s options…”

“I’m Catholic.”

“Good for you. So am I.” He tells her not really sure where she’s going with this.

Mac laughs “We don’t know anything about each other” she shakes her head. She thinks she might fall in love with him but what does she really know about him? He never talks about his family or his life before New York, she doesn’t really know anything about his past. “I don’t believe in abortion.”

“Ok.” He feels a small part of relief that she didn’t plan to abort their baby. “There’s always adoption.” He says it apprehensively. He’d support her whatever decision she made even if he was absolutely terrified at the thought of being a father, he didn’t really learn much about being a good dad when he was growing up. 

“I don’t know.” She says softly still running her hand over her stomach. “I always thought about kids, not any time soon but I always thought I’d want to be a mother someday.”

“Someday, in about 9 months?” He covers her hand with one of his. “I never thought about kids.” He places a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “I’m in though. Whatever you decide I’ll be right there, right beside you.”

… … … … … …

“Thank you.” She smiles at him as he hands her a cup of coffee “I don’t think I’m supposed to drink coffee.”

“It’s decaf.” He sits beside her and wraps and arm around her. “Are you ok?”

It had been a long night the night before and neither Will or Mac had slept very well but they hadn’t really talked either, both staring into the darkness.

“I’m scared.” She admits. “Of being a mother.” She mumbles quietly and runs her hands around her coffee mug “Of telling my mother.”

“Ahhh.” He hadn’t considered that they’d both have to tell their families. Will thinks his mother will be happy her oldest child is finally giving her the grandchild that she wants from him if not somewhat disappointed that he’s doing so out of wedlock. His father, well he doesn’t care what he thinks. He realises though, that things are probably more complicated for Mackenzie.

“They know I’m dating someone. I haven’t really told them much about you.” She pauses “I’m not ashamed of us…”

“But I’m 36 years old.” He says matter of factly, he’d turned 36 in July and celebrated with a nice dinner that was supposed to be cooked by Mackenzie and ended up as takeout in her new apartment, her oven didn’t really work and they’d ended up with chicken that was still raw on the inside. “I used to be your teacher and you’re nervous about how your parents will take it.

“You’re not?” Mac asks him softly.

“Not really. I mean, I am about how yours will take it. Mine? I think they’ll be happy.” He takes her mug and puts it on the table in front of her before pulling her into his lap. “My mother will just be disappointed I didn’t marry you first.” He shrugs “Eyes of God and all of that…”

Mackenzie chooses to ignore the marriage comment. She doesn’t want him to feel pressured into it. “Your dad?”

“I don’t care what he thinks.” Will say firmly.

“Will?” She intwines their hands.

“My father was a violent alcoholic. I don’t really care about his opinions on my family.”

“Your family?”

“We’re having a baby Mackenzie. That makes us a family.” He places a soft kiss on her forehead.

“Your dad was a violent alcoholic?” She tucks herself into his side and wraps an arm around him.

“Yeah” He shuffles away from her. “Towards us, towards my mother…”

“Will.” She places a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s ok. He didn’t hit us once I learned to hit back.” The tone Will uses implies that it’s all he has to say on the matter and Mackenzie chews her bottom lip and looks at him with concern.

… … … … … …

“Are you sure you don’t want me in there with you?” Will hovers at the door of his lounge as Mac stares at his phone. It had been two weeks since they found out she was pregnant, she was yet to tell her parents and she was yet to make a decision on what she wanted to do with the baby.

“Yeah. This is something I need to do on my own.” She takes a deep breath and listens to the phone ring taking a deep breath as it’s answered on the other end “Hi Mum…”

Will nervously paces his hallway whilst Mac breaks the news to her parents, from the raised voice he could hear from Mackenzie it didn’t sound like it was going well. Once it had been quiet for a few minutes he decided to brave going into the room.

“Mackenzie?” He pokes his head through the door and see’s her sat in the corner of his couch, with her knees tucked up into her chest, staring into space. “How did it go?”

“He cut me off.” She mumbled.

“What?”

“My father. He cut me off.” Mac mumbled again.

“Why?” He had a feeling he knew why.

“I told him I’m keeping the baby.” She mumbled. “He wants me to give it up for adoption and break up with you. He thinks I’m letting you ruin my life with your midlife crisis.” Will can’t help but think that Mac’s father may be right. She wipes her nose with the sleeve of what Will realises is his Columbia law sweatshirt. “So, I’m cut off until I see sense. He won’t support this.”

“I support this.” Will sits next to her and wraps her up in a cuddle. He had to admit he was a little scared. This is the first time he’d heard Mac mention that she intended to keep the baby, whilst he was slowly coming around on the idea it wasn’t something they’d really talked about. “And I’ll support you and the baby.”

“Thank-you.” She mumbles against his chest.

“Marry Me.” Will is surprised the second the words come out of his mouth.

“Excuse Me?” Mac pushes herself off Will’s chest.

“Marry me. We’re having a baby and I think we should do this right.” He holds her

“That’s hardly a reason to get married Will. We’ve been together for three months” It comes out high pitched.

“I know, look Mac honey, I love you. We’re creating a family together. So lets do it right.” He takes her hand and smiles. Both of them are well aware that this is the first time either of them have said those words before now.

She looks at him, thinks and takes a breath before nodding. “OK.” Will kisses her and pretends not to notice she didn’t say it back.


	15. April 2011

Mac stared intently at the latest article about Will on TMI when there’s a gentle knock on her door. “Hey Mac?” Jim sticks his head in Mac’s office door. “I think we found some things…”

“In the opposition research?” She briefly looks up at Jim before going back to her article. “What have you found?” Jim disappears briefly and calls in Maggie and Gary. “What have you found?” Mackenzie repeats her questions.

“You were at Georgetown around the mid-nineties right?” Jim asks her, avoiding her gaze and Mac just ‘hmms’ in response.

“Will was a poli-sci professor at Georgetown at the same time.” Maggie says awkwardly.

“I know. I took his class on US-China relations.” Mac’s still focused on the article about Will and trying not to laugh at the pictures that accompany it.

“You might know who she is then.” Gary interjects.

“Who she is?” Mac suddenly starts paying attention.

“Will left Georgetown after it was discovered he had an affair with a student.” Maggie says awkwardly, she’s done the math on the Will/Mac relationship realises that there’s every possibility that Will was with Mac either during the affair. “The parent of the girl made a complaint and he was forced…”

“Sorry did you say a parent?” Mac cuts her off.

“That what the university told me, the girl’s father made the complaint…” Maggie mistakes the reason for Mac’s apparent anger.

“Son of a bitch.” Mac mutters

“Mac…” Jim starts.

“He never said anything.” Mac begins to calm down.

“I’m sorry Mac.” Maggie offers “Were you…”

“I always thought that it was Brian.” Mac doesn’t really say it to any one of them in particular and then starts mumbling to herself about Brian and Will and how much they dislike each other.

“Mac?” Jim calls so that she suddenly remembers that they’re there.

“Oh my god” She yells shaking her head at their look of confusion “I’m the girl.” Mac offers as if it should be obvious. Whilst she doubts Will would want them to know the ins and outs of how they met, by this point the whole newsroom is well aware of Mac and Will’s personal life. “That Will had the affair with.” She takes in the shocked looks on their faces “I was the student.”

“Oh” Maggie’s surprised by this and Jim just awkwardly looks away.

When none of them go to leave she gets concerned “Let me guess, you’ve also found that Will has two kids and an ex-wife” She tries to laugh it off. 

“No, actually it’s something from Nebraska.” Gary hands over a file. “Some police reports…”

Mac sticks her hand out and takes the file from Gary and quickly glances through. “Don’t tell Will you found these.” The last thing Will would want is for everyone to know about this. “Don’t tell anyone you found these.”

“Mac won’t the Lansing’s use…” Jim starts

“They won’t use this.” She cuts him off quickly. “This won’t embarrass Will, I mean it will, but this won’t achieve anything but create sympathy for him. The Lansing’s can’t use this to fire Will.” They could certainly use it to hurt him though and she’ll admit that she is concerned about that. Will would lose his mind at the thought of everyone knowing what happened in a rundown old farmhouse in a town, outside a town outside of Lincoln.

“Ok.” Maggie, having read the energy in Mac’s office realises it would be best to move on. “We also found this…” She hands Mac a document.

“This is from the RNC?” Mac asks and Maggie nods. “Asking Will to come on as deputy campaign manager for Bob Dole’s presidential run?” Maggie nods again. “It’s dated late August 1996.” She frowns and then pushes back from her desk leaving Maggie, Jim and Gary just looking at her confused.

She pushes open the door to Will’s office and waves the paper at him.

“No I’m not busy at all, please come in.” Will snarks at her.

She continues waving the paper. “This is a draft press release announcing you as the deputy campaign manager for Bob Dole.”

“Good for Bob, I’d have thought at 88 he wouldn’t be up for a presidential campaign…”

“It’s dated 30th August 1996.” She throws the paper on the desk “That’s the day after I told you I was pregnant with Emily.”

Will just shrugs at her. “What is it you think I found?”

“Were you planning on leaving me to go on the campaign trail?” She demands an answer, he leans back in his chair and pulls out a packet of cigarettes lighting one, more to piss her off than anything else. “All this time, you’ve made me feel guilty because you were head of heels in love with me and really you were with me because of the baby.”

Will takes a drag of his cigarette “I’d already turned the campaign down when you told me.”

“You had?” She looks at him and tilts her head to the side.

“I’d already done the presidential campaign thing once, I was happy in DC. I was happy with you.” He stares at her.

“You’d already turned it down?” She looks at him and he just nods.

“I wanted to give us a chance.” He stubs the cigarette out and reaches into a draw and pulls out a Tiffany blue box and slips out the box and shows Mac the sparkling diamond ring. “I was going to give you this on our 10th anniversary, I realised I never actually gave you an engagement ring and I thought this would be nice and then…”

“Then I cheated.” She mumbles.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I cheated on you.” She huffs loudly and Will just nods at her.

“Are we done here?” He takes the ring box and puts it back in his desk draw.

“Yeah.” She turns on her heel and walks out of the room.

… … … … … …

“Why did you lie to Mackenzie?” Jacob looks at him and Will just stares back. “About the campaign? You were planning on going on the campaign trail.”

“I didn’t want her to think that I was going to break up with her.” He says defensively.

“Were you going to break up with her?”

“I don’t know.” Will says honestly. He really doesn’t know what his plan was, he was hoping if he disappeared for months on end whilst it was all still so new the relationship would fizzle out but, he also knew he was falling in love with her.

“Ok, why did you buy the ring?” Jacob sits forward and stares at Will. “Buying the ring wasn’t normal.”

“I knew there was a chance they’d find the RNC offer. I couldn’t have her come in and wave it in my face yelling about only being with her for the baby.”

“So you bought a ring…”

“I’m going to return it.” He can tell Habib isn’t satisfied with the answer. “For four months she cheated on me.” It’s about as close to an admission as he’ll get that he bought the ring to hurt Mac.

“It’s four and a half years later.” Habib tells him.

“We were married for 10 years. It’s not just a get over it situation.”

… … … … … …

Will ponders the conversation with his therapist as he sits on the couch a few days later. He hears the front door open and voices on the steps. He stands and walks into the hallway and see’s Emily with the boy she’d been dating (thankfully Habib hadn’t asked him about how he felt about that).

The boy looks like he’s about to lean in for a kiss when he notices Will in the hallway and immediately steps back.

Emily turns around, puts all her weight on one leg and bites her lip and looks at him “Hi Dad.” She looks and sounds so much like her mother it hurts. “This is Josh.”

The scrawny boy from Valentine’s stands in front of her and holds his hand out “Hello Mr McAvoy, I’m Josh Miller.” Will shakes the hand but doesn’t say anything and then loiters in the hallway, leaning against the wall whist Josh

“Um, good night Em I’ll call you.” He waves again and then runs out the house.

Emily turns and looks at Will, with a look of pure fury that he recognises as one of his own rather than her mother’s “You are so embarrassing!” she yells at him as she storms off towards the stairs.

Will sighs not sure when his little girl became a moody teenager, admittedly he thinks he could have handled that a little bit better but he’s about as happy with Emily dating as he is with Mac dating. He takes a deep breath and pushes off the wall and goes and follows his daughter.

“Emily…” He knocks on the door.

“Go away.” She yells back

“Emily…” He tries again.

Emily pulls open her door and folds her arms across her chest and stares at him, again looking the spitting image of her mother. “I can’t believe you did that!”

“What did I do?” He knows but he’s not giving her the satisfaction.

She just groans and storms back in her room. Will gives up and walks off flinching as he hears the sound of her door slamming. He goes to the back garden with a fresh glass of scotch and hits play on the outdoor sound system listening to the subtle sounds of Van Morrison. He’s halfway through his second cigarette when his phone rings he sighs when he sees the name and accepts the call.

 _“Really Billy? You loomed over Emily and her boyfriend whilst he was trying to say goodbye.”_ Mac laughs down the phone.

“I don’t like the kid.” He grumps.

 _“Do you even know him?”_ Mackenzie can’t keep the amusement out of her voice.

“And you do?”

_“Well having met him for more than 30 seconds…”_

“When did you meet him?”

_“I made the effort and invited him for dinner.”_

“You invited him for dinner?”

 _“Last week.”_ She’s annoyingly nonchalant about it _“He’s perfectly nice Will.”_

“He’s a boy.”

_“You’re an idiot. Anyway, I called to give you a heads up about some things that were found in the opposition research…”_

“Other than 13-year-old job offers?”

_“Yes, other than old job offers. First of all, there’s police reports from Nebraska…”_

“The Lansing’s won’t use them. What’s next?”

_“I think we should at least prepare for the possibility they may become public knowledge. Perhaps sit down with Emily when she starts talking to you again.”_

“No.”

_“Billy…”_

“Did they find anything else?”

_“You had lasik, you’re a registered Republican and never finished the New York Marathon.”_

“You knew all of these things.”

 _“I’ll tell you what I didn’t know…”_ Her tone makes Will nervous. _“Who made the complaint to Georgetown”_

“Ok.” He doesn’t confirm that he knows but Mac figures it out from his lack of answer.

 _“You never said anything.”_ She says softly.

“I didn’t want to make it worse.” He shrugs, not that she can see.


	16. September 1996

“Hey.” Will leans against the doorframe of their bedroom and smiles at his wife of two weeks. They’d married at the DC courthouse a few days after Will’s impromptu proposal.

“Hi.” She looks up from her book and glances at the alarm clock next to her bed. “I thought you had a department meeting tonight?”

“Did you manage to find a sub-letter for your apartment yet?” He offers instead.

“That’s not what I asked.” She picks up her bookmark and stares at him. “Will?”

“I’m just curious, it’s a good location and you moved in here…”

“Will. Stop trying to distract me. What’s going on?” She tilts her head and stares at him.

“I, uh, got fired today.” He shrugs.

“Sorry what?” She sits up.

“Well I quit so I didn’t officially get fired. It was a resign or we’ll fire you kind of conversation.” He toes his shoes off and sits next to her on the bed.

“What happened?” She looks at him.

“I filed the paperwork to add my wife to my health insurance, which when you add together a complaint about an inappropriate relationship with one of my students both of whom happen to be called Mackenzie McHale, someone figures it out.”

“Someone made a complaint?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“They didn’t say.” Will was lying, he knew exactly who made the complaint, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He wraps an arm around her.

“Will, I can’t support us both. I barely made enough to keep up my studio apartment let alone support me, you and a child.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” He takes his arm from around the shoulder and holds her hand. “I’ve had a few job offers since March.”

“Ok…”

“From ACN about coming on as legal correspondent.” He runs his thumb over her palm. “It’s your thing, journalism and I feel like I skipped a few stages.”

“It’s a job though right?” She asks him “An actual paying job?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs “Pays a little better than what I was making at Georgetown comes with health and dental. There might be some travelling involved.”

“You should take it.” Mac picks up her book.

“You’re sure?” He looks at her and she smiles. “Ok. But first, I’m taking you away.”

She puts the book back down “Away where?” Mac accepts she’s probably not going to be reading her book again tonight.

“Honeymoon.” He says and Mac laughs. “Mackenzie, I married you in a courthouse. An honest to god shotgun wedding, with no friends, no family and it wasn’t the big wedding that I’m sure you’ve been planning for years. Let me do this for you.”

She nods. “Where are we going?”

… … … … … …

Will is placing their carry-ons in the overhead compartment as Mac slips into her seat by the window. “Where’s your seat?” She asks him.

“Aisle.” He grunts as he tries to shove Mac’s bag into the locker. “Last minute booking. Couldn’t get two seats together.” He’s about to slide into his own seat when another passenger shows up.

“Sorry can I just?” He squeezes past Will and sits in the middle seat. “Barry.” He holds out a hand and shakes Will’s who mumbles a grumpy “Will.” Then Barry shakes Mac’s who beams at him and chirps “Mackenzie” as she returns the handshake. Will sits back in the aisle seat and looks helplessly at Mac who just grins at him in response.

Barry, as it turns out likes to talk and whilst Mackenzie politely responds to all his questions, Will sits in a moody silence until Mac eventually needs the bathroom and Will and Barry slide out of their seats to allow Mac to leave.

“Tell you what Bill.” Barry watches her walk down the aisle “There are worse people to be stuck next to on a flight.” He slaps Will on the back. “I think I uh, need the bathroom as well.” And he follows Mac down the aisle winking at Will as he does so.

When Mac comes back she’s smiling and Will looks at her quizzically. “Barry asked me for drinks.”

“What did you say?” He takes a sip of the scotch he’d ordered and forces himself not to be jealous, she seems amused by the situation.

“I told him I’d totally be up for it. Married pregnant women are what’s hot these days right?” Mac laughs shooting him a look that lets him know she thinks he’s an idiot.

The clever response Will has planned dies on his lips when Barry re-appears. The rest of the flight is spent with Barry making passes at Mackenzie which she laughs off whilst Will sits and silently fumes the duration of the 4 and a half hour flight.

After the flight with the passenger from hell, who insisted on calling Will “Bill” for the whole flight, they finally checked in to their hotel on Nassau. Mac had taken Bill and turned it in to Billy much to Will’s horror (something Mackenzie found hilarious).

“Cheer up Billy. We’re on honeymoon” She squeezes his hand as they’re in the elevator.

“Billy? Really, we’re sticking with that?” He grumps

“I like it.” She tells him as they exit the elevator and go towards their hotel room.

Realising that he wasn’t going to win this argument in a fair fight, he tries a different tactic. “I booked us a trip in a few days I think you’ll like it.”

Mac goes to lift her bag but finds her hand swatted away by Will. “A trip where?” She asks.

“Exuma. To see the pigs.” He tells her as he heaves her case onto the bed “What have you packed in here? Cinder blocks?”

Mackenzie beams at him. “I always wanted to see the swimming pigs.”

He returns her smile “I remember you mentioning it.” She’d told him during one of their office hours meetings that she was thinking about taking a trip to the Bahamas to see the pigs as soon as soon she found a journalism job willing to pay her real money.

… … … … … …

Will slowly rubs Mac’s back as she’s hit by a particularly bad bout of morning sickness. They’d gotten lucky in the first couple weeks of Mac’s pregnancy and she hadn’t experienced any sickness but on the second day of their honeymoon she’d woken up sick and hadn’t managed to get out of bed for five days. They’d missed their trip to Exuma, something which devastated Mackenzie although Will promised he’d bring her back for a do-over honeymoon, she’d get to see the pigs if it killed him.

“I ruined our whole trip.” She moaned as she lifted her head from the toilet and sat back against him.

“It’s not your fault honey.” He places a gentle kiss on her cheek and wraps his arms around her.

“We only had a week and we’ve spent all of it in the hotel.” Mackenzie whines before breaking out of Will’s grasp to be sick again. 

It wasn’t quite true, they’d managed to get to the beach on the first day and wandered around the Straw Market picking up a few souvenirs to take home. If Will was being honest he hadn’t minded being holed up in a hotel room with Mackenzie, which is how he felt a honeymoon should be spent and even if they didn’t get to engage in the “traditional” honeymoon activities they’d talked. Talked about Will’s new foray into the world of journalism, baby names, Mackenzie’s childhood and on day 3 after a particularly rough morning/afternoon he’d surprised her with two simple platinum wedding bands one of which he’d slid it on her finger to shaky smile from Mackenzie.

“Billy?” She asked head still in the toilet and he held back a groan at the nickname that was definitely sticking “Tell me about Nebraska.”

“It’s the 37th state, it lies in both the Midwest and Great Plains. Not only is the state itself landlocked, all the states that surround it are landlocked. Our state bird is the Western Meadowlark…”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” She pushes herself up off the toilet. “Tell me about your family, about growing up there.”

Will stands and tries to tamp down the anger he feels “I don’t really want to talk about it Mackenzie, you know that.”

“I know but, we’re married and…” She trails off and tries to get off the floor, despite being mad at her Will is still a gentleman and he lifts his wife off the floor and takes her to bed. “I just want to know you.”

“You do know me Mac.” He rarely called her Mac when they were alone and she looked at him sadly.

“Please.” She looked at him with those big brown eyes and sad smile which he was learning fast would always be his undoing.

Will sighs and starts talking “My parents are called John and Rose. They were high school sweethearts.” He climbs on the bed next to her and she snuggles into his side “My Mom was 17 when she had me, she dropped out of school and married my father. I guess a wife and two kids in quick succession weren’t part of his plans he quickly started drinking. It got worse after his draft number came up and he did his tour in Vietnam. All you need to know about him Mac is when I was 11 I cracked a bottle of Dewar’s across his head and once I learned to hit back things weren’t so bad anymore. They weren’t good but it happened less. I was 16 and I high tailed it out of that farm and haven’t really looked back since.”

“You don’t see them?” Mac asks

“I see them, maybe once a year. I couldn’t do that to my Mom, just cut her off. I don’t think my brother and sisters would appreciate it either.” He’s reluctant to tell her this, he anticipates that she’ll ask to come with him next time.

Mac however surprises him “What are you siblings called?” The thought makes her laugh, here she is in bed with a man who is her husband, a child on the way and she’s only just now learning the names of his family. Luckily she holds in the laugh, she’s not sure he’d appreciate it.

“Karen, she’s a year younger than me give or take a couple of months. Then there’s Mary she’s three years younger than me and David he’s the baby of the family. I was 8 when he was born.”

Mac starts playing with the t-shirt he’s wearing and mumbles “I have a sister called Rose and another called Alexandra I’ve got a big brother as well, he’s called Andrew. He had a baby just after I graduated remember. My first nephew, Harry.”

“You’ve got more than one nephew now honey.” Will starts stroking down her back “You’ve got my nephews William and Thomas who are 9 and 7 respectively. There’s a niece as well she’s called Holly and she’s 5.” Mac just hmms in response and Will realises she’s exhausted so he kisses the top of her head “Go to sleep Mackenzie. It’s ok” She sighs contentedly and allows herself to drift off against Will’s chest.


	17. May 2011

** May 2011 **

Things were starting to feel a little clearer as he sat on the terrace in his back yard. He looked up and could see the cranes building the World Trade Centre towers and he thought back to 2001 when, if he’d been living here 10 years ago he’d have been able to see the Twin Towers. He remembered that day and the moment when he finally left the anchor desk sometime around 3am, now a candidate for the anchor chair and finally had a chance to call Mackenzie who was back home in DC. The more he thought about it, that day put them on the path to where they are now and it seemed right that the day they finally got Bin Laden that she was there. 

Then it hit him. Mac was always there. Since she came back she was always there, for him, for the kids and that made him happy. He’d missed her when she was overseas and at this moment in time that he was pretty sure he’d be able to get over the hurt that was caused when she went back to Brian.

“Fuck it.” He mumbled and threw back the glass of whiskey he’d carried out with him and picked up his phone. He still loves her and he thinks there’s a chance for them and she needs to know that. “Damn it.” Voicemail.

Her greeting finishes and he takes a breath “Hey it’s me, Will.” His nerves and the residual pot in his system are making things a little hazy so he takes a breath. “Listen, I swear I’m not just saying this because I’m high. If the answer is no, please do me a favour and don’t call me back or bring it up or anything. But I have to tell you, after tonight, I really wanted to tell you that I’ve never stopped. I’ve never stopped loving you. You were spectacular tonight.” He takes a breath “Can you believe we got Obama?”

There’s nothing to do but wait now so he takes the empty glass to the kitchen and remembers to throw the extra cookies in the bin before the kids came across them when they got back from their sleep overs and goes to bed nervous about seeing Mackenzie tomorrow.

… … … … … …

“I thought you could use this.” Mac sets a large coffee on the desk in front of him shortly before the 11am rundown. 

“How did you know?” Will offers her a weak smile.

“I definitely remember a night around July 1996…” She lets the sentence die on her lips and smiles down at her shoes before looking back up at Will.

He laughs says “Then 9 months later” and takes a sip of coffee.

“I just wanted to check, there’s no more cookies…”

Will holds a hand up to stop her. “In the trash. Second thing I did when I got home.” He stares at her pointedly and she just stares back at him offering a confused smile.

“Come on Billy. If you’re not too hungover, there’s a rundown meeting we need to get to.” She turns around and Will sits for a minute in dumbfounded silence, feeling the rage creep back up. She’d turned him down again when he could’ve sworn over the last year she’d made it pretty clear that she still had feeling for him. ‘But she turned you down on Valentines’ a small voice in his head reminded him.

He pushed himself out of his chair and walked into the meeting far grumpier than when he’d arrived at work.

… … … … … …

“When’s Mom coming back over?” Emily asked and Will felt his heart stop before remembering she didn’t know anything about the rambling declaration of love he’d left on Mac’s voicemail a week earlier.

“Huh?” He looks up from where he’s cooking his normal bacon, egg and cheese sandwich (because fuck Habib’s advice).

“She’d been around a lot recently. I thought you guys were like friends or whatever?” She sits at the breakfast bar.

“We are.” He lies. “We were planning the party for the show, parties over now.”

“Oh. That sucks.” Emily looks genuinely disappointed and Will feels the rage bubble a little more, it wasn’t just him she’d hurt with her rejection.

“Yeah.” He glances at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Why are you up so late?”

“I just came for a glass of water.” She stands and walks over to the sink, Will just nods and tells her to go to back to bed. 

It’s not until an hour later when he’s browsing his computer does an idea hit him and he remembers an email that was sent to him from his publicist, another magazine article but this time he gets to choose the writer and the magazine.


	18. February 1997

** February 1997 **

The scream is blood curdling and Will flies out of the kitchen where’d he been cooking dinner for them and finds her crying on the sofa. “Mac what’s wrong? Is it the baby?” He asks panicked.

“My father!” She sobs rocking back and forth on the couch. “He’s had a heart attack.”

“Is he…” Will lets the sentence die on his tongue. He knew that Mac was really struggling with her parents lack of acceptance about her relationship and choices with the baby. He knew she was hoping they’d come around on the idea.

“I don’t know. He’s at New York Presbyterian, he collapsed at work.” She chokes out in between sobs. Seeing how much pain she’s in Will makes a decision and walks out of the room quickly throwing items into a bag and then comes back into the lounge.

“Come on.” He pulls her off the sofa, grunting a little as he pulls her up. She’s six months pregnant now and it’s not easy to lift her.

“What are you doing?” She asks confused.

“We’re going to see him.” He leads her to the hallway “Come on, it’s a long drive.”

“I don’t think he wants to see me.” Mac whispers tears still streaming down her face.

Whilst it’s a very real possibility Will thinks the odds are that she’s probably wrong. “I don’t think that’s true honey and if it is… Well at least you made the effort.”

“We’ve got work in the morning.” She tries instead, she’s afraid and she knows it and Will knows it.

“I’ll call them. Next excuse please Mackenzie.” He snaps as he locks the door to their apartment.

“I’m afraid.” Mac surprises them both and goes with the truth.

Will softens and turns to look at her, he places both hands on her shoulder “Even if he doesn’t want to see you, you came and that means everything. If the worst happens and you didn’t go, you’d never forgive yourself.” He kisses her softly and Mac nods finally allowing Will to lead her to the car.

… … … … … …

It took just over 4 hours to drive and they didn’t say a word to each other for nearly the whole drive until they were going through the Holland Tunnel and Mac finally says “Where are we staying?”

The thought hits Will like a train. He’d loaded his pregnant wife into a car drove 220 something miles and hadn’t thought about where’d they’d spend the night. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Ok.” She tells him quietly, the thought having already passed through her brain during a brief moment she wasn’t worried about her father.

There wasn’t any further conversation until they got to the hospital, she grabs his hand in a vice like grip that surprises him and she cries “Billy” quietly as they walk through the doors and up to the reception desk. The receptionist gives them directions to the waiting room and they walk the quiet halls of the hospital towards the surgical waiting room and Mac tenses up as they walk through the door. Will follows Mac’s gaze and he see’s an older version of Mackenzie sat on the bench clutching her purse. The woman on hearing them come in the room looks up and her eyes meet Mac’s. Will gives her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Hi Mum.” Mac says softly.

Margret McHale walks over to them, smiles sadly at her daughter and looks down at her baby bump. “Mackenzie.” She says as she exhales a long breath and reaches out towards Mac who steps away from Will and nervously takes her mother’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Dad?” Mac asks

“Still in surgery at the moment but they’re cautiously optimistic.” Margret tells her and then allows her gaze to fall to the man stood behind her daughter. “Will McAvoy I presume.” Will nods and Margret studies him for a second and suggests that they sit.

Mac walks over to the bench and sits in between her mother and Will and keeps holding her mother’s hand. They sit in an awkward silence until Mac starts struggling to get up after announcing that she needs to go to the bathroom. Will stands and helps pull her to her feet and she goes off to the bathroom leaving Will and her mother awkwardly sat together.

Margret makes the first move. “How far along…”

“A little over six months.” Will keeps looking forward.

“You married her.” It’s a statement rather than a question.

“On September 3rd.” He pulls out a small wallet size photo of them at the courthouse on their wedding day and hands it to Mac’s mother.

Margret rings her hands together and looks up before asking “Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”

“Girl.” Will allows himself a little smile at the thought. They’d found out a few weeks ago, the baby finally being in the best position to check.

“She’s happy?” Margret finally turns to look at him.

“I hope so.” Will tells her honestly. He has no idea if Mackenzie is happy or not, but he really hopes she is. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she is.”

“I’m sad that I wasn’t there for the wedding.” Margret admits after a period of awkward silence. “This isn’t what I wanted for her, but I should have been at her wedding.” She hands the photo back to Will.

“I’m sorry.” Will admits.

“What’s Will sorry for?” Mac smiles as she comes back.

“Don’t worry about it.” He kisses her on the cheek.

“Where are you staying?” Mackenzie’s mother asks and Will chuckles.

Mac looks at him and smiles. “We hadn’t thought about it until we were halfway across the Hudson.”

“You should stay at the apartment.” Margret tells her “You’re always welcome at home Mackenzie.”

“Thanks Mum.” Mack leans her head against her mother.

“Mrs McHale?” The doctor comes out and Mac’s mother stands, Mackenzie struggles to get up as well. The doctor comes over and talks to Mac’s mother reassuring her that her husband is ok and that he’d been moved to a recovery room. “We’re expecting him to be out for another few hours, you should go get some rest.”

“Oh. No. It’s ok someone should really sit with him.” Margret turns to get her purse and finds Will’s hand covering hers.

“Take Mackenzie home, she won’t go if you stay. I’ll sit with him and I’ll call if anything changes.” Margret nods and thanks him.

… … … … … …

Will settles into the uncomfortable chair in the recovery room and stares at his father-in-law. The man who ultimately had him fired. Will thinks he understands him though, he’s not even met his daughter yet and he’d already kill to protect her. He finds himself slowly nodding off listening the rhythmic beeping of Ted’s heart monitor.

When he wakes up he finds Ted staring at him. “McAvoy?” The man asks, he sounds formidable even from his hospital bed.

“Yes Sir.” Will sits up straight.

“I’m going to be honest, I would not have expected to see you sitting by my bedside.” Ted watches him and Will can’t tell what’s going through the other man’s head.

“Mackenzie and her mother needed to rest. It’s been a long day for them.” 

“For us all.” Ted tells him.

Will doesn’t know how to respond for a moment. “Mackenzie misses you.” Ted doesn’t respond to this but nods. Will tells him that he’s going to go and get a nurse to let them know he’s awake, he stops before leaving the room. “Please don’t hold this against Mackenzie. She was terrified, she thought she lost you without being able to make this right.”

Will leaves the room, a glance at the clock shows it’s 8am. First, he calls the number Margret hastily scribbled down for them to let Mac and her mother know if Ted was awake. Then he calls the office to tell them that he and Mac are in New York.

Mackenzie arrives at the hospital and Will kisses her cheek “I’m going to go change and shower and then I’ll be heading to work.”

“Work is 4 and a half hours away?” Mac looks confused.

“I’m going to be working out of the AWM main building. See how those New York big shots do it.” He tucks a stray hair behind her cheek. “Spend some time with your father honey, you can call me if you need me.”

… … … … … …

Will walks out into the bullpen of ACN’s New York office and looks around, he sees a harried looking person who he assumes is a producer and stops them to ask where he should work.

“You McA-something? The Legal guy?”

“Yeah.” Will nods and the producers starts dragging him to an empty desk

“The jury’s expected to come back on the Pitts trial today, the FBI guy spying for Russia?” Will nods to show that he knows what they’re talking about.

“Excellent. Keep an eye on it and be prepared to be on TV at some point today.”


	19. May/June 2011

Mackenzie was furious. There was no other way to describe it, he’d brought Brian in and now he was once again sat opposite her looking as smug as the day she’d told him it was over.

**_Flashback_ **

_“What?” Brian sat up in bed and looked at Mackenzie who was pacing back and forth across his bedroom._

_“I’m breaking up with you.” Mac repeated. “It should be familiar to you, we’ve done this before.”_

_“We’ve done this a few times…” Brian admits shrugging “You always come back.” He adds with an air of smugness._

_Mac fights down the urge to throw something at his head. “I think you’ll find it’s you that comes back.”_

_Brian smirks at her answer. “When?”_

_“Christmas 1995. You broke up with me and literally came running back to me at the ACN DC Christmas Party.”_

_“Ahh yes, the Christmas party you invited McAvoy to.” He flops back against the pillows. “You wanted me back, you could’ve said no.”_

_“I was young.” Mac throws back at him. “I’m serious this time Brian.”_

_“You were pretty serious in February 1996 as well.” He tells her smugly. “Still came back to me then and you came back four months ago.”_

_“I don’t know what I was thinking.” She snaps back at him._

_“That’s the problem Mackenzie, you can never make your mind up. Me or the Poli-Sci professor, giving up your dreams for his…”_

_“At least Will loves me.” Mac hisses as she pulls on the last of her clothes._

_“It’s a shame you don’t love him.” Brian tells her smugly. Mac makes sure to slam the door on the way out._

**_End Flashback_ **

“You cheated on me with Will.” Brian tells her, they’d be discussing the famous email.

Mac tamps down the desire to punch him, how dare he accuse her of cheating on him. She’s never cheated on anyone, except Will but she doesn’t think about that, how dare he sit there and be so high and mighty. “Let’s be as clear as anyone has ever been about anything. I cheated on Will with you and I am paying the price. I’m working 30 feet away from the life I could’ve had if I hadn’t been so stupid.”

“You seriously don’t think you cheated on me?” Brian asks. “I’m not talking about 2005 Mac…”

“I never cheated on you Brian.” She tries not to yell, she’s trying to yell less at work. Will’s the one that yells.

“December 1995.” He says it with an air of knowing something that she doesn’t and the tone bothers her. She can’t quite put her finger on what it is.

“You and I remember December 1995 very differently.” How dare he accuse her of cheating on him in December.

“Really?” There was that tone again. “Why am I not surprised?”

“We argued for weeks, you dumped me and I stupidly took you back.” Mac tells him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He

“Can you remember why we argued?” He knows the answer, Mac doesn’t and she knows it. It’s bothering her.

“Because I went to work for ACN.” That was definitely one of their big arguments.

“Yeah we argued about that, I was young and thought I was morally superior…”

“And you don’t now?” Mac interrupts him.

“You’re the one with stable employment Mackenzie and besides there’s more to life than just the news. That’s not the point I’m making Mac, we argued about stupid stuff but there were definitely a lot of arguments about Will McAvoy.”

“Nothing happened with Will whilst I was with you.” Mac can’t believe she has to tell him this.

“I saw you.” He takes a pause to revel in the confusion on Mac’s face. “At the ACN Christmas party.”

“What?” Mac looks at him and it hits her. Her fist kiss with Will was at the 1995 ACN Christmas party. “You’d broken up with me the day before.”

“What? You expect me to believe that was the first time?” Mac finally recognises the tone, it’s patronising.

“I don’t expect you to believe anything Brian. You should know I never cheated on you. Your obsession with my relationship with Will is…” She trails off as a thought hits her. “Wait, is that what that bullshit article in the Hoya was about?” Mac remembers the article Brian wrote about Will just after they got back together, on the day he convinced her not to go to office hours.

“Mackenzie…”

“It was, wasn’t it…” Unfortunately she doesn’t get an answer as Neal comes in to pitch a story that surprisingly isn’t about Big Foot.

… … … … … …

“Hey Mac…” Brian tries to catch her again as she leaves the office.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Mac brushes him off and Brian finally notices the girl stood beside Mac.

“This is your daughter?” He looks at Mac and then holds his hand out towards Emily. “Hi, I’m Brian. I’m an old friend of your Mom’s.” Mac snorts and notices Will stood in his office door scowling at the interaction between Brian and Emily. “…I’m writing an article about your dad and…”

“Em, I forgot my wallet can you go grab $20 off your dad for the cab” Mac tells her quickly. Emily just looks at her confused and goes over to her father. “Don’t talk to my kids Brian.” She hisses at him once she’s sure Emily won’t hear. She holds a finger up to cut off whatever response Brian has planned.

“Ready Mom?” Emily appears back and looks between her and Brian.

“Jim!” Mac calls and sees her senior producer pop his head up “I’m taking Emily to a dentist appointment. I’ll be back in time for the broadcast.

Once they’re safely away from Brian and in the elevator, Emily finally looks at her mother “Who was that?”

“Just someone I used to know.” Mac is definitely not ready to have the Brian conversation with Emily, last time it didn’t go so well.

“Wasn’t the guy you cheated on dad with…” Emily trails off as she realises who the guy is.

“Yeah.” Mac answers the unanswered questions. “I know we didn’t really talk after I told you but if you have questions, you can ask them.” 

Emily nods but doesn’t say anything until they’re in waiting room at the dentists office where she shuffles uncomfortably in her seat for a moment before awkwardly asking “When did you meet him?” Mac doesn’t get a chance to answer before Emily’s called into the office.

… … … … … ….

“Hi.” Mac knocks on the door to Emily’s bedroom when she gets home from the bar with Sloan. “Are you ready to talk?” Emily nods in response. “I met Brian when I started college and we quickly started dating but we weren’t right for each other and we constantly split up and got back together. It wasn’t a healthy relationship and neither of us were old enough to understand this. About the same time, I met your father.”

“Was dad working in the White House then?” She asks.

“No.” Mac wonders for a moment if she should be honest. “Your dad was actually one of the professors, we… nothing hap…” She stopped mid-sentence, she wasn’t about to lie to her daughter. “Your father and I, it’s hard to explain but what’s really important is that we didn’t get together until after I graduated and I wasn’t his student anymore.” A slight bending of the truth but Mac felt she could live with this one. “We had you very quickly and got married very quickly and everything just happened so fast and then after your brother was born and we moved to New York and things were getting a little out hand and everything was moving so quickly again, I felt overwhelmed and then Brian was there and things happened. It lasted four months and it is the biggest regret of my life.”

Emily is silent “You and dad got married because you had me?” Mac nods and wonders briefly if this is a conversation she should’ve run past Will before having with Emily. “Did you love Dad?”

Mac feels her heart break at the question. “There is nobody on this planet I love more than you and your brother. Your father is a close second though.”

“You still love Dad?” Emily asks and Mac nods.


	20. May 1997

** May 1997 **

Mackenzie lowers herself into the chair at the restaurant, she was meeting Will for a quick dinner, a last date night before the baby was born. It was ruined slightly by the fact he was staying late for a segment airing at 10 o’clock and would be going back to work, whereas Mac had begun her maternity leave a few days earlier.

“Hey Mac” She tenses as she hears a familiar voice lazily drawl and she turns quickly, something which isn’t easy when she’s 9 months pregnant.

“Brian?” She hadn’t seen him since graduation and even then, they hadn’t spoken. She saw him as he walked on the stage ahead of her to collect his diploma. 

“How’s the field reporting going?” He slides into the seat opposite her and throws a sly smile at her obvious baby bump.

“I’m a chase producer at ACN” Mac tries to sound cheery about it, she’d hoped to become a field producer but obviously plans changed when she got pregnant.

“What even is that?” He laughs that.

“I manage the guests for the shows” She mumbles.

“Tip of the journalistic sword.” He laughs again. “I’m a staff writer now. Writing the news and not showing people to the studio.”

Mac can feel the arrogance radiating off him, she knows he’s written a few pieces that have been published and that he sees her work as beneath him “I’m paying my dues Brian” She throws at him.

“Cool. Married as well? That was quick.” Brian smirks and nods towards her wedding band. His tone obviously mocking what he correctly assumed was a quick wedding, the result of her pregnancy.

“What do you want Brian?” Mackenzie desperately wants Brian to go away, she couldn’t cope with his smugness right now.

“I just came to say hi.” He leant back in the chair. “New York’s great by the way, shame you couldn’t come.”

“I didn’t want to come with you Brian.” She rubs the spot on her belly where the baby is kicking.

“Sure you didn’t”

**_Flashback - March 1996_ **

_“Hey” Brian opens the door to his apartment._

_“Hi” Mac leans up to kiss him only to frown when he turns his head and directs her to his cheek instead._

_“I need to tell you something.” He steps to the side and she walks in and reaches out towards him only for him to ignore her attempts at physical contact._

_“Brian what’s going on?” She looks at him confused._

_“I got a paid internship for when school is finished.” Brian avoids eye-contact with her._

_“That’s great Brian, ACN offered me a chance to turn my internship into a paid…”_

_“The internship is in New York.” Brian cuts her off. “I’m moving to New York.”_

_“Ok, that’s fine. We can make this work. I can see if I can move to the New York office and if I can’t we’ll try long…”_

_“Mac, I don’t think you understand what’s happening here.” Brian cuts her off again. “I’m moving to New York.”_

_“You said. I’m saying we can make this work.” Mac smiles at him._

_“No. Mackenzie. I am moving to New York.” He takes a breath “Without you.”_

_“What?” Realisation hits Mac like a freight train. Brian is moving to New York. Without her._

_“Yeah I mean, we want different things.” He shrugs_

_“Different things?” What the hell was Brian on about?_

_“Yeah, like I want to be a serious journalist and you want to do the news that draws people to the products from the advertisers. I’m going to be writing about Bosnia and you’re going to be reporting about kittens in a tree to sell cat food.” He laughs._

_“Television news brought down McCarthy” Mac fires at him_

_“After jumping on the bandwagon started by the Washington Post.” Brian waves a hand to dismiss the argument forming on her mouth “Face it Mackenzie you sold out and chose the easy road. I chose serious journalism and this is never going to work.”_

_“Seriously?” He’s breaking up with her because she’s not committed to journalism? Mac wonders what the hell Brian is thinking_

_“I’m just concerned that if you’re not going to be committed to a career how could you commit to us?”_

_“Brian…”_

_“I think we’re over Mac, it’s been fun but we’re done with school soon and it’s time we both started thinking about the future and if I’m being totally honest, I can’t see a future for us.”_

_“You know what Brian?” She’s angry and she’s hurt “Fuck you.”_

**_End Flashback_ **

“I’m happy in DC”

“Clearly.” He looks down at her belly “Who’s the lucky guy?”

Mac doesn’t need to answer him as Will chooses this moment to appear. “Hi honey” He kisses her cheek “Sorry I’m late.” He frowns as he then notices Brian.

“Brenner?” The confusion is evident, and he looks at Mac who shoots him a brief look of panic before smiling back at him.

“Professor McAvoy?” The corners of his mouth start to turn up. “Mac, it was nice to see you.” He smirks at her and pushes the chair back and walks away.

Will looks down at Mackenzie who stares up at him and offers him a shaky smile. “Are you ok honey?”

“Yeah, he’s just a douche.” Mac smiles “Let’s not let him ruin date night.”

… … … … … …

Ever since she hit her third trimester Mac had been struggling to sleep although tonight, she understood her insomnia was less to do with the baby and more to do with her encounter with Brian. As much as she hadn’t wanted it to, it had ruined their date night. She’d always told Will that she’d broken up with him but he’d dumped her, it was out of the blue and it was brutal. She was embarrassed and then he showed up at dinner unexpected bragging about his career, whereas she wasn’t where she wanted to be and she now needed to rethink her career plans taking Will and the baby into consideration.

Mac knew she couldn’t let Brian get in her head. She was happy. Will is a good guy, he’s sweet, he looks after her and he clearly loves her. Ok so things had moved at the speed of light but she was pretty sure she loves him and they had the baby and things were going well. She was resolved, from the morning she was going to pour 110% into this relationship and she was going to be the journalist she wanted to be, she was just going to have to work a little harder at it. Mac was happy in her decision and so instead decided to try and focus on getting comfortable and maybe getting a little sleep.

Just as she started to settle Mac felt a sudden sharp pain in her back. “Ow!” She wasn’t worried she’d had a little back-ache during these last few months. The pain moved to her stomach and suddenly she felt the urge to go to the toilet but was struggling to get up.

“Billy.” Mac nudges her sleeping husband. He grumbles and rolls away. “Billy wake up.” Mac tries again, he shrugs her off. “Billy!” She shoves him and he wakes with a start.

“What’s the matter? Is it the baby?” He sits up quickly and looks at her blearly eyed and panicked.

“I need to go to the loo and I can’t get up.” She tells him.

“Oh.” Will swings his legs out of the bed and goes to her side where he hauls her to her feet and smiles at her.

She’s about to make a sarcastic comment when the pain hits her again and she doubles over.

“Mackenzie?” Suddenly he’s right next to her hand on her back and looking at her, eyes full of worry.

“It’s fine, just Braxton Hicks I’ve been having them for weeks and a bit of back pain. I’m carrying around an actual fully grown human being in my uterus, it’s not comfortable”

“Well not quite fully grown.” He mumbles “When she comes out she won’t even be able to hold her head up.”

“What are you on about?” She looks at him in complete shock.

“When cows are born they’re standing on their own and nursing within two hours. She’s going to need us for months, years even.”

“Are you comparing our baby to a calf?” She can’t quite believe him.

“I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Does it look like I’m in the mood for jokes Will?” She stands up to her full height, difficult with her current gestational state and the cramps that won’t seem to go away. ‘Seriously?’ she thinks, her body is well prepared at this point and these practice contractions can go away.

“It does not.” Will concedes.

Mac waddles off towards the bathroom and Will gets back into bed, he’s just about to fall asleep when he hears Mac calling for him from the bathroom.

“I swear to god Mac, if you need help getting off the toilet…” He walks in the room and looks at his wife who is staring into the toilet.

“My mucus plug fell out.” She looks at him with a nervous smile. “I don’t think they’re Braxton Hicks.” 

“Your what?” He feels he should know what the mucus plug is and then suddenly he processes the rest of her words “Is the baby coming?”

“Yeah.” She holds a hand out to him. “The baby is coming”

… … … … … …

It was a surprisingly quick labour, only around six hours, which Mackenzie is assured is quick for a first labour but definitely did not feel quick to her as the person who had to push the exactly 8 pound baby out of her vagina.

She was exhausted as Will placed the baby in her arms and kissed her sweaty forehead with a whispered “I love you so much Mackenzie.”

“I love you too.” She smiles at the squirming bundle in her arms before turning and kissing her husband. “She’s perfect.”

“Yeah.” Will reaches down and rubs a finger over her little cheeks and then holds her hand, her little fist grabs his finger and Will doesn’t think it gets any better than this.

“Have you guys decided on a name?” The OB asks smiling at the obvious joy her patients (at least two of them) were feeling.

“Emily.” Mac looks up at the doctor and offers her a warm smile “Emily Morgan McAvoy.”


End file.
